Season opener Portland vs Minnesota 7:00 Wednesday Ripcity tv/KUNP

[SweaterBae]

SS continues to add absolutely nothing.

[zzaj]

Gotta be pretty positive after this one...certainly a lot to like even in a loss.

Blazers started making some poor decisions in the 4th and seemed to lose the thread in the last few minutes especially. Holiday played a little bit of hero ball on back to back 3pt attempts, but that's okay. Some of those will go in at some point, and somebody has to be a hero. Holiday adds a ton to this version of the team.

Not really sure what to say about Sharpe...if he could just shoot league average he'd be in All Star consideration. He disappeared at times tonight.

Interesting that they decided to stick with small ball when Clingan sat--first Grant, then Deni, then Grant again as center.

I counted at least 6 points on leakouts from Minny players. That has to stop. It was an issue last season too...

Overall, just a lot to like. Both Camara and Matisse add a ton of defensive moxy. Should be a fun season...

[SweaterBae]

Gotta be pretty positive after this one...certainly a lot to like even in a loss.

Blazers started making some poor decisions in the 4th and seemed to lose the thread in the last few minutes especially. Holiday played a little bit of hero ball on back to back 3pt attempts, but that's okay. Some of those will go in at some point, and somebody has to be a hero. Holiday adds a ton to this version of the team.

Not really sure what to say about Sharpe...if he could just shoot league average he'd be in All Star consideration. He disappeared at times tonight.

Interesting that they decided to stick with small ball when Clingan sat--first Grant, then Deni, then Grant again as center.

I counted at least 6 points on leakouts from Minny players. That has to stop. It was an issue last season too...

Overall, just a lot to like. Both Camara and Matisse add a ton of defensive moxy. Should be a fun season...

League average SS as a scorer is still below league average at every other thing.

[Braggins]

Ya'll need Scoot back asap.

[Blazinaway]

POR 31% from 3 tonight, MIN 50%

POR 40% FG, MIN 49%

POR only 11 fast break points, need to do better

Sharpe 3-9, Holiday 1-7, Avdija 0-6 from 3pt

Camara started off 2-2, ended up 2-5

Tough to overcome Sharpe 5-20, Avdija 6-16, Camara 3-9 & Holiday 5-15

Billups says they deserved the win the game, not when you shoot that bad you don’t

Dundon was at the game tonight,

Anyone else see what Edgecombe did tonight?

Listening to Grant answer repeated questions by reporters about how it is to come off the bench and looking at his expression is pretty telling and not in a good way

G
For the first time I can remember Grant played "within" the offense and did not force things or ball hog. That Jerami is at least worth his contract

[mojomarc]

4th quarter GLB pic

Spoiler:

Time to retire her as a GLB after that 4th quarter

[DusterBuster]

Chauncey got robbed!

[DusterBuster]

No sorry sorry, I meant Chauncey robbed!

[BlazersBroncos]

Consitering the shooting night the team had this game was full of optimism IMO.

Clingan is a freaking monster. His raw stats were meh but he impacted an incredible number of shots.
Grant off the bench with the green light is a legit positive player - albeit still overpaid.
Holiday, ya not the best game and some out of character silly shot selection. He will come around on offense. Defense looked great.
Sharpe - well, this sure looked like the SS of old. He really has issues getting around his man at times, for all his burst and vertical athleticism he doesnt have a great first step. Will hold off judgement obviously on 1 game but we seem to be OK with him taking #1 option # of shots.
Deni - outside the 3 he was the Deni we saw for the most part in the post ASB. The shot will come around.
Camara was Camara - but we want him to be a bit more than Camara with that raise. Like Sharpe, he really couldnt get past his man in the halfcourt set.
Kris did Kris things - nice versatile defense, great motor, deer in the headlights when the ball was in his hands.
MT was a demon on defense and trash on offense - him playing 110% for 15-18 minutes a night will be nice, but his offense is so bad he shouldnt see much more time than that.
Wesley, as a 3rd PG, actually showed me something. Insane effort and motor on defense. Limited as a shooter will keep him as a 3rd stringer but I am sorta a fan.
Yang - fish out of water. He had some absurdly bad rotations in that zone set. In time he should settle in a bit, hopefully.

Overall - great defensive effort, great effort getting in transition (Even if we only had like 11 fast break point) and a predictably bad half court offense where off ball movement / picks / cuts / etc were still pretty lacking. All that beign said, if we hit 15-42 (35%) rather than 13-42 (31%) of our 3s we wing a game against a Top-3 or 4 team in the West.

Its pretty clear this team needs a top option though. We can only hope someone shakes free this season and we make a godfather offer IMO (Still hoping for Sharpe / Scoot / Yang / picks for Giannis).

[Village Idiot]

I didn't notice any new offensive sets in the highlights. Lot's of guys standing around like last year. Hopefully Bjorkgren or Splitter get more traction with it than Billups

[Wizenheimer]

* Jrue + Sharpe = 29 points on 35 shots <--> Grant = 29 points on 14 shots. Yikes!

* last season, the Blazers were in the bottom-5th in the league in FG%, 2ptFG%, 3ptFG%, FT%, eFG%, & TS%. They couldn't shoot well enough to be a .500 team. That was not addressed in the off-season. Not sure, even with a stouter defense, if they can shoot well enough to be a .500 team this season. I'm betting no

* finally saw Yang on an NBA floor against actual rotational NBA players in a game that counted and he looked lost, slow, and 2 years away from being 1 year away. Project. The difference between Yang & Clingan was pretty glaring

* bye bye Chauncey

[DusterBuster]

I didn't notice any new offensive sets in the highlights. Lot's of guys standing around like last year. Hopefully Bjorkgren or Splitter get more traction with it than Billups

I honestly would love if they keep Bjokgren as the lead assistant for consistency and give Splitter the HC job.

[Blazinaway]

I didn't notice any new offensive sets in the highlights. Lot's of guys standing around like last year. Hopefully Bjorkgren or Splitter get more traction with it than Billups

I honestly would love if they keep Bjokgren as the lead assistant for consistency and give Splitter the HC job.

You got your wish, did I hear correctly that Bjokgren turned down the HC job?

[DusterBuster]

I didn't notice any new offensive sets in the highlights. Lot's of guys standing around like last year. Hopefully Bjorkgren or Splitter get more traction with it than Billups

I honestly would love if they keep Bjokgren as the lead assistant for consistency and give Splitter the HC job.

You got your wish, did I hear correctly that Bjokgren turned down the HC job?

What I heard on The Fan was the team asked Bjokgren to stay in his position for stability, so not that he turned down the job, the team didn't offer it to him and asked him to stay in the role he was currently at.

[wco81]

ESPN showed highlights where Ant was hitting some big shots in a close game. Two of the shots were against Grant.

Why was Grant guarding him instead of Kamara or Jrue or Deni? Did they hunt Grant, who used to be an okay defender with the Nuggets?

[JasonStern]

I never understood why you do a coaches challenge 4 minutes into the game, now they’ve lost that ability

If you're confident that call was a bad call, time remaining should be a non-factor. 2 points early in a game count as many as 2 points late in a game.

Same mentality with timeouts. If you're getting out coached, need to make adjustments, etc. - saving them "just-in-case" is probably foolish. Fix what needs to be fixed so that you don't need late game timeouts.

[Walton1one]

I never understood why you do a coaches challenge 4 minutes into the game, now they’ve lost that ability

If you're confident that call was a bad call, time remaining should be a non-factor. 2 points early in a game count as many as 2 points late in a game.

Same mentality with timeouts. If you're getting out coached, need to make adjustments, etc. - saving them "just-in-case" is probably foolish. Fix what needs to be fixed so that you don't need late game timeouts.

Yes and no. The thing is, if you get it wrong, you lose that ability to challenge for the rest of the game (and a timeout). IMO, is the risk worth the reward? 2pts at the beginning of a game when teams can routinely erase double digit leads within the span of a few minutes?

Not worth it IMO. Those 2pts are not worth the risk that you are wrong and the call is not reversed and more importantly, the right to challenge when it really does matter (key call\end of game). Winning that call did not matter one bit, but losing the ability to challenge could have...