Game 52: Portland vs Toronto 4:30pm SNW

[Soulyss]

This could be a defining game. Toronto hasn't been playing great defence lately and coach Dwayne Casey will be getting on them to be better defensively. We know the Blazers have been playing well lately so this could be a really good game.

Toronto has to be favoured but if we can pull a win out it should give a lot of confidence to the team since the Raptors are considered one of the top two or three teams in the East.

You may be right, just not in the way we wanted

[monopoman]

Toronto was extremely hot from the 3 pt line. That’s the difference. But of course the question is why did they get 41 attempts and make 19 or whatever it was? Great execution or bad perimeter defence? Or a combination of the two?

Either way 130 points is unacceptable. I don’t think we’ve allowed that many more than a couple times this season.

It’s funny because I made the comment before the game that Toronto was playing sub par defence lately and coach Casey will be emphasizing that. Then they come out all offence and put up a big offensive output.

It’s a funny game sometimes. Portland misses home court that’s for sure.

Well ya know what they say..

"Teams are not as good as their best game or as bad as their worst game."

[Soulyss]

Toronto was extremely hot from the 3 pt line. That’s the difference. But of course the question is why did they get 41 attempts and make 19 or whatever it was? Great execution or bad perimeter defence? Or a combination of the two?

Either way 130 points is unacceptable. I don’t think we’ve allowed that many more than a couple times this season.

It’s funny because I made the comment before the game that Toronto was playing sub par defence lately and coach Casey will be emphasizing that. Then they come out all offence and put up a big offensive output.

It’s a funny game sometimes. Portland misses home court that’s for sure.

Blazers got CRUSHED on the offensive glass, that combined with hot shooting from 3pt was a recipe for disaster.

Man, hard to believe Kate let us down..

[Roy The Natural]

Yeah I get that hark provides next to nothing on offense but he's a better defender in my eyes than turner when he's engaged. Not to mention I'd rather have him shooting stand still 3s than turner since the other teams have figured out there's no need to guard anybody besides our guards

Problem is... Harkless is only engaged about 50% of the time.... so every other game you get completely nothing on both sides of the ball. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Harkless last year... but for whatever reason, he just hasn't been the same player outside of like 3-4 games. Turner stinks too, but good Turner showed up far more often this year than good Harkless, even if good Harkless is better.

Here's how I see it"

Good Harkless is best... this year, he shows up about 5-10% of the time.

Good Turner is second..... he shows up about 20-25% of the time.

Bad Turner is third... he shows up the remaining 75-80% of the time.

Bad Harkless is the worst.... shows up about 90% of the time these days.

Last year, it was about 60/40... maybe even 75/25 that you got good Harkless, which was worth the risk. Bad Harkless is so utterly useless, he's in Layman territory... That's the Harkless showing up on a near nightly basis. I don't like Turner playing anymore than anyone else here, but when Harkless trots around the floor uselessly he's worse than even Turner on his worst nights.

[Roy The Natural]

Toronto was extremely hot from the 3 pt line. That’s the difference. But of course the question is why did they get 41 attempts and make 19 or whatever it was? Great execution or bad perimeter defence? Or a combination of the two?

Either way 130 points is unacceptable. I don’t think we’ve allowed that many more than a couple times this season.

It’s funny because I made the comment before the game that Toronto was playing sub par defence lately and coach Casey will be emphasizing that. Then they come out all offence and put up a big offensive output.

It’s a funny game sometimes. Portland misses home court that’s for sure.

Blazers got CRUSHED on the offensive glass, that combined with hot shooting from 3pt was a recipe for disaster.

Man, hard to believe Kate let us down..

I was just thinking that... Beckinsale has to easily be one of the most beautiful people on the planet..... how did we not win

[PDXKnight]

I hate early games, I don't realize they're on till they're over half the time!

[Shem]

The Raptors dominated the boards. The 2nd chance points killed the Blazers. The Raptors took 27 more shots. This is a game the Blazers needed rebounding. They could have played Vonleh instead of Collins. And more Harkless for his defense over Turner. This is when people question the coaching.

[whatchaknow]

Yeah I get that hark provides next to nothing on offense but he's a better defender in my eyes than turner when he's engaged. Not to mention I'd rather have him shooting stand still 3s than turner since the other teams have figured out there's no need to guard anybody besides our guards

Problem is... Harkless is only engaged about 50% of the time.... so every other game you get completely nothing on both sides of the ball. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Harkless last year... but for whatever reason, he just hasn't been the same player outside of like 3-4 games. Turner stinks too, but good Turner showed up far more often this year than good Harkless, even if good Harkless is better.

Here's how I see it"

Good Harkless is best... this year, he shows up about 5-10% of the time.

Good Turner is second..... he shows up about 20-25% of the time.

Bad Turner is third... he shows up the remaining 75-80% of the time.

Bad Harkless is the worst.... shows up about 90% of the time these days.

Last year, it was about 60/40... maybe even 75/25 that you got good Harkless, which was worth the risk. Bad Harkless is so utterly useless, he's in Layman territory... That's the Harkless showing up on a near nightly basis. I don't like Turner playing anymore than anyone else here, but when Harkless trots around the floor uselessly he's worse than even Turner on his worst nights.

Haha that was very well put

[Epicurus]

Two many second shots for Raptors. Too little contributions from Turner, Aminu, Davis, Napier, and Collins (ugh, he was awful, but has an unlimited leash apparently).

[JasonStern]

I always was rather amused by the Raptor's slogan of "We the North" when we are actually further North than they are.

I've never thought of that so I just looked it up.

Portland is 45.5231° N....Toronto is 43.6532° N

since there are 68.703 miles in a degree of latitude, Portland is over 128 miles further North than Toronto. Hell, Eugene is further North than Toronto

thanks mono for the trivia...I love having that stuff in my quiver

The freezing tundra of Toronto is/was a running joke on the general board to troll Raptors fans, some of which just viewed it as Americans being ignorant on their way to Tim Hortons. I'd make a Canada joke here but peak Patrice O'Neal couldn't come up with a better comeback than the Blazers paying $18 million for Turner putting up 2 points in 21 minutes.

[JasonStern]

Yeah I get that hark provides next to nothing on offense but he's a better defender in my eyes than turner when he's engaged. Not to mention I'd rather have him shooting stand still 3s than turner since the other teams have figured out there's no need to guard anybody besides our guards

Problem is... Harkless is only engaged about 50% of the time.... so every other game you get completely nothing on both sides of the ball. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Harkless last year... but for whatever reason, he just hasn't been the same player outside of like 3-4 games. Turner stinks too, but good Turner showed up far more often this year than good Harkless, even if good Harkless is better.

Here's how I see it"

Good Harkless is best... this year, he shows up about 5-10% of the time.

Good Turner is second..... he shows up about 20-25% of the time.

Bad Turner is third... he shows up the remaining 75-80% of the time.

Bad Harkless is the worst.... shows up about 90% of the time these days.

Last year, it was about 60/40... maybe even 75/25 that you got good Harkless, which was worth the risk. Bad Harkless is so utterly useless, he's in Layman territory... That's the Harkless showing up on a near nightly basis. I don't like Turner playing anymore than anyone else here, but when Harkless trots around the floor uselessly he's worse than even Turner on his worst nights.

You sound like every Orlando Magic fan calling him Mo Heartless prior to the Magic dumping him for salary relief, which is exactly what many Blazers posters are hoping will happen.

FWIW I thought he was the better of the Turner/Leonard/Harkless overpays at the time. Still think he has the most potential of the three to turn things around but I have also been drinking.

[Brandon-Clyde]

I hate early games, I don't realize they're on till they're over half the time!

You are going to really despise Sunday's game(9:00am)

[DaVoiceMaster]

The rebounding was what I noticed most about this game. The Blazers needed more out of everyone not named Lillard, Nurkic or McCollum. Collins fouls too much! I'd have gone to Vonleh in this game for rebounding. I also would have gone to Harkless for defense and a few extra inches might have helped with the rebounding, as well. I didn't even know half of the players on Toronto's team, but they were outplaying our team which is sad. I know it was a long trip and early start time, but other teams have to do the same so they can't use that as an excuse. They just plain got beat.

[zzaj]

If Lillard continues at his season average of 25.2pts/gm he will surpass Cliffy at 10,405pts in the next 15 games. He'll end the season in the #4 spot on the all time record with 10,750pts. And if he has another season like this one next year (scoring more than 25 points a game) he'll easily pass Aldridge at #2 on the list with 12,562 pts. Wouldn't that be nice!

[PDXKnight]

I hate early games, I don't realize they're on till they're over half the time!

You are going to really despise Sunday's game(9:00am)

Yikes!

[soloxylo]

Lillard/McCollum need a lot more help, think the meeting with Allen was in regards to that and the direction of the team moving forward. Next to being a Raptor fan for life, that Roy/Aldridge/Oden era Blazers teams was my favourite team to watch; Roy being one of my fav players all time. I think you guys should be sellers at the deadline, considering a lot of the bad contracts on the roster.

A dynamic, top 5 backcourt in their prime in Lillard/McCollum deserve a lot better. There’s just a lot of question marks throughout the roster; Turner ($18M), Leonard ($11M), Harkless ($11M), Aminu ($7M). That’s a lot of salary for 4 guys that don’t really move the needle, 2 barely even in the rotation. That’s a max player between Turner + Leonard/Harkless alone. That $46M in total could easily be 2 max players, DAJ + a stretch PF would look great beside Dame/CJ. Hopefully, you guys figure it out.

[monopoman]

Aminu is worth his contract, Leonard, Turner and Harkless are overpaid. Harkless actually was worth $11 million based on his last season play but he took a huge step back this season for some reason.

If we trade Aminu we are looking to get value back we are not just going to throw him away to save some money. Aminu is one of our best defenders and one of our best 3 point shooters. Trust me this team is nowhere near as bad as they looked against your team in Canada. We seemed a step slow on nearly every possession, which was a bit puzzling since we weren't playing the night prior.

We also have a hard **** time convincing free agents to sign here, a few years back we went all out trying to recruit Whiteside and the man basically used us as leverage so Miami would match the contract we would give. 9 times out of 10 a big name free agent won't even give us a meeting.

[Dan2087]

We are in the same boat - we have a ton of difficulty attracting big free agents. Very few give us meetings.

Our entire roster for the most part then was acquired through trade or drafted. The only guys on our roster that we signed outright as free agents are CJ Miles. Ibaka I guess was another but we traded for him the season before and no one was going to offer what we offered because a stretch 4 like him was one of our biggest holes for a while.

Lowry couldn't have gotten more money anywhere else and we just made the conf finals - he's also super close with DeRozan so we did manage to keep him the last few times during free agency.

Our GM Masai has just done an incredible job drafting. OG, Siakam, Poeltl, Powel, Wright - all guys who are a big part of our success this year, and all drafted by us - most in the 20's of the draft. All very athletic and long defenders able to cover multiple positions, and all can score. VanVleet was an undrafted free agent as well.

You guys need to do the same. Stay the course with Lillard and McCollum and surround these guys with home grown talent.