Season OPener: Portland vs Utah 7:00pm SNW

[Roy The Natural]

Playtype ISO (NBA status)--last night Jazz 3.7% of possessions; Blazers 1.9% of possessions. ( both under last seasons 5.7 and 9.0 percents). ISO narrative doesn't coincide with NBA definitions or what I learned long ago. Rockets last year were the highest ISo use team some 19% of posssessions, with the Blazers being second with half that percent. Normally the Blazers are around 10th.

I would have lost my bet regarding contested threes. The Jazz took 27 of their 50 threes wide open, compared to the Blazers taking 10 wide open threes out of their 33 attempts. They both hit at a 40% rate (actually 41 for Utah). On open, and tight attempts thingss were basically equal.

I wish a stat existed to determine what wide open threes came from the initial play or from 2nd chances, including from broken plays where the offense retrieved a deflection or other loose balls. My impression from the one viewing is that a disproportionate share of those favored the Jazz.

I mean.. you're right... and kinda off-base. The Blazers don't technically iso a bunch, they P&R a bunch. The thing is, when CJs handling the ball the pick and roll is just setting a screen for him to hunt for his own shot. Which is sort of an iso with a screen. Blazers also don't move with purpose off the ball much.

Really offense isn't the biggest problem. Melo will need to not jack up a ton of shots though. However, this was the first game where I actually saw improvement. Outside of that disastrous 1st bench shift, and some general early season miscommunication the team had some good moments.

That bench unit was awful though. The bench needs to run more actions looking to get shots off the ball. With Hood, Trent, and Kanter... the offense shouldn't be Melo and CJ chucking up bad shots everytime down. I said it earlier, need to treat DJJ and Covington like Dame and CJ, and always have one on the floor.

If Melo and Kanter are going to lead the bench, then we need to have at least 2 good defenders out there with them. I'm really worried about the bench lineups right now. In a way, we have too many guys who need/want minutes who aren't currently a good fit together.

[Roy The Natural]

It's been mentioned above that the 2nd unit should not be put on the court together again. That may be true, given the failure of the reserves to keep the game tied as when they entered at about 7:30 or so. They put (again counting the previous warmup games) the Blazers in a hole. Yet beyond their first stint together, the starters as a unit even worse. The new starters in particular contributed poorly--rim finisher Jones, wasn't; three shoot forward Covington, didn't. No matter the squad, rebounding, rebounding, rebounding is needed. Neither the starting unit nor the the present replacement unit has a 2nd rebounding big (aka PF). Last season one of the main differences with the 50+ win team of the year prior was rebounding. Without a true PF or sometype of role playing rebounder, the same problem obviously exists. Must think about using Giles with one of the units.

Agreed. I think Giles should play at the 4 with the second unit. I'd honestly rather play Melo at the 3 in most matchups. He's not good defensively at any spot, but at least with a real 4 rebounding can become a strength with the second unit. Zach is a solid offensive rebounder as well when he comes back.

Ideally, if we're stuck with Kanter and Melo being on the court together I'd like to see either Covington/DJJ/Giles out there with them CJ and Trent. That leaves Hood as the odd man out, but right now Melo and Hood need to be splitting minutes until they prove good enough to be on the court together. There's just too many liabilities on the floor at once in that bench unit.

[d-train]

Blazers biggest problems were rebounding and indecision. Of course, indecision on defense, but unforgivably indecision on offense. It seems like we are locked into either myopic decisions by Lillard or indecision from the rest of the team. We are either too predictable when Lillard dominates the ball and is myopically focused on his own offense, or too indecisive when we run through a secondary playmaker. It's not because secondary playmaking through Nurkic once worked and now Nurk is playing bad. What's happened is defenses have a better defense prepared. No amount of coaching can replace the players on the floor instinctively making the right decisions at game speed.

It does seem like Stotts might be over coaching and maybe is too worried about keeping too many players happy with playing time. Stotts has 5 small forwards that are getting approximately an even share of minutes and he is committed to nobody. He needs to commit to at least 1 of these 5 and make it clear that player is accountable for providing what the opponent is taking from Lillard, CJ, and Nurk. And, a decision has to be made between similar players. RoCo, DCC, and Melo are unique, but GTJ and Hood are similar. A decision has to be made between GTJ and Hood.

Also, just because we have 5 small forwards doesn't mean the right combination of SF's is the solution to every problem. Frankly, Jazz are well situated to handle all our SF's with the possible exception of Melo. However, I'm not sure what good answer Jazz would have had for Giles.

The good news is Blazers are going to work through these problems and there is no shortage of good options to combat the problems.

[monopoman]

It's been mentioned above that the 2nd unit should not be put on the court together again. That may be true, given the failure of the reserves to keep the game tied as when they entered at about 7:30 or so. They put (again counting the previous warmup games) the Blazers in a hole. Yet beyond their first stint together, the starters as a unit even worse. The new starters in particular contributed poorly--rim finisher Jones, wasn't; three shoot forward Covington, didn't. No matter the squad, rebounding, rebounding, rebounding is needed. Neither the starting unit nor the the present replacement unit has a 2nd rebounding big (aka PF). Last season one of the main differences with the 50+ win team of the year prior was rebounding. Without a true PF or sometype of role playing rebounder, the same problem obviously exists. Must think about using Giles with one of the units.

The problem is trying to play Hood+Kanter+Melo together, they don't have the defensive tools to maintain a score unless they are hitting shots every time down.

Blazers biggest problems were rebounding and indecision. Of course, indecision on defense, but unforgivably indecision on offense. It seems like we are locked into either myopic decisions by Lillard or indecision from the rest of the team. We are either too predictable when Lillard dominates the ball and is myopically focused on his own offense, or too indecisive when we run through a secondary playmaker. It's not because secondary playmaking through Nurkic once worked and now Nurk is playing bad. What's happened is defenses have a better defense prepared. No amount of coaching can replace the players on the floor instinctively making the right decisions at game speed.

It does seem like Stotts might be over coaching and maybe is too worried about keeping too many players happy with playing time. Stotts has 5 small forwards that are getting approximately an even share of minutes and he is committed to nobody. He needs to commit to at least 1 of these 5 and make it clear that player is accountable for providing what the opponent is taking from Lillard, CJ, and Nurk. And, a decision has to be made between similar players. RoCo, DCC, and Melo are unique, but GTJ and Hood are similar. A decision has to be made between GTJ and Hood.

Also, just because we have 5 small forwards doesn't mean the right combination of SF's is the solution to every problem. Frankly, Jazz are well situated to handle all our SF's with the possible exception of Melo. However, I'm not sure what good answer Jazz would have had for Giles.

The good news is Blazers are going to work through these problems and there is no shortage of good options to combat the problems.

Stotts usually experiments with lineups as the season goes along, at this point I don't think he is anywhere set on what the lineup will be. I will be blown away if the lineups and minutes we saw from this game is the same thing we see in game 30 of the season. People act like Stotts is set in his ways, but while his defensive schemes may be almost always the same he usually is very willing to move guys up or down on how many minutes they get depending.

[Epicurus]

On plays started with opponent missed FGAs, like against Denver, Jazz got 53 points on 43 such possessions. The Blazers got 24 points on 31 possessions. On made field goals, Jazz 40 pts on 31 such possessions, and Blazers 43 pts on 38 possessions.

Shooting matters. Not just obviously for offensive totals, but for the defense. Psychologically players tend to defend better after they do well offensively (no even short term moping), structurally the ball going through the net allows more time to set the half-court defense against which it is more difficult to score, as Dame described in post-game comments. Same thing happened in the Denver preseason games.

[Epicurus]

Last night I thought the 2nd unit's defense woes were not attributable to Kanter, especially when the Jazz offense started with a Blazer make. In the set defense, he was deflecting and bothering shots (not blocking, but at least bothering). He didn't get much help from Anthony and Hood, however, and he just doesn't have the defensive chops without help from forwards.

I loved how on Offense, when Anthony has the ball, Kanter assumes it is time to get offensive rebounding position, as in time Anthony will shot it.

[d-train]

On plays started with opponent missed FGAs, like against Denver, Jazz got 53 points on 43 such possessions. The Blazers got 24 points on 31 possessions. On made field goals, Jazz 40 pts on 31 such possessions, and Blazers 43 pts on 38 possessions.

Shooting matters. Not just obviously for offensive totals, but for the defense. Psychologically players tend to defend better after they do well offensively (no even short term moping), structurally the ball going through the net allows more time to set the half-court defense against which it is more difficult to score, as Dame described in post-game comments. Same thing happened in the Denver preseason games.

I agree players work harder on defense when they are happy with what's happening on offense. However, this doesn't fully explain why offensive possessions starting with a missed or blocked shot, or a TO do better than ones starting with an inbound pass. The primary offensive advantage of the former is the potential of an unbalanced floor.

[Epicurus]

Didn't I say that with different words ( comment on structural)

[d-train]

Didn't I say that with different words ( comment on structural)

Ok, I didn't know 'structurally' ment unbalanced floor. I get it now.

[GEE]

So far, the starting lineup has looked to me like a over-correction. It also couldn't help that we are inserting two new players into it. I hope Stotts can figure this out soon, and not continue with what doesn't work for several games before making an adjustment. Use the first 5 games to experiment and figure it out! Change it up!

I agree that Giles should be playing... he definitely earned it in the preseason, and with Collins still out, I think an argument could be made, that starting him might be rewarding. Something like this:

Dame / Simons
CJ / GTJ / Hood
Jones / ROCO
Giles / Melo / Collins
Nurkic / Kanter

PLAY ALL 12! Hope Collins tries to earn his starting job back, and looks good in his efforts. Minutes for Giles and Collins over Kanter at C could be had as well. Less Melo now... more in the playoffs. A few minutes for Hood at the 3, and a few for ROCO at the 4 is also always doable.