WCF game 1 Portland vs Golden State 6:00pm Tuesday ESPN

[Matt800]

I don't know who is responsible, but POR has had a couple bad game plans in this playoffs so far. Putting Aminu on Jokic and Kanter on Millsap was really bad. And the way they defended screens was really bad this game.

Will be an interesting series, I wonder if POR will find ways to win games or at least make it competitive.

Only thing that would have resulted in Kanter moving closer is that Kanter would have less rebounds. The Warrior distant shooters would not have been impacted by a step or two closer Kanter.

It wasn't always Kanter. It was a lot of poor rotation by multiple players to cover shooters coming off screens. As well as lazy defense for catch and shoot 3s without screens. POR doesn't necessarily have the players to cover GS well. But they can certainly have a better game plan and better execution.

[PDXKnight]

Gotta learn what we can from this loss and use it as motivation. We lost game 1 of the semifinals too, same as then winning game 2 would be a great bounce back and a sign that we’re serious about making this series competitive.

Bare minimum I’d like to get to game 6 just to get another home game! A 5 game out would be still well outperforming as just getting to the wcf is incredible but I’d love if we could make this round competitive. We don’t get here often, might as well make it exciting!

[Epicurus]

Yes, I am sure that the GAMEPLAN was to loose screen containment and to slide slowly to open shooters. I think the Warrior offense was simply too fast for the Blazers and when combined with hot shooting, there will be trouble.

[Fitz303]

Yes, I am sure that the GAMEPLAN was to loose screen containment and to slide slowly to open shooters. I think the Warrior offense was simply too fast for the Blazers and when combined with hot shooting, there will be trouble.

Do you really believe that having your roll defender sit back on the ball handler all night (as both Kanter and Collins did), putting all of the pressure on the man fighting over the screen, was a good gameplan? That it was that the warriors were simply too fast? Too fast for what? Neither big man had plans to trap, and there was no help off the ball from anyone else. That was the gameplan. Fight over the screen and hope that 2 of the best shooters of all time dont hit those shots before a man comes from behind to swipe at it

[Moonbeam]

And you think that somehow Enes Kanter is the ingredient to slow down Curry and Klay. only thing it would have done is open the middle and guarantee more, far more, second shots by the slashing Warriors.

That's true, but Portland has to pick its poison against a team like GSW. Curry and Klay are lethal from 3 as everyone knows, so I think while Durant is out, stopping that should probably be priority #1, even if it opens up interior opportunities. Then again, I'm not a coach, let alone one that can gameplan against one of the greatest teams and most proficient offenses in NBA history.

[Fitz303]

And you think that somehow Enes Kanter is the ingredient to slow down Curry and Klay. only thing it would have done is open the middle and guarantee more, far more, second shots by the slashing Warriors.

Ya I'll take my chances with Draymond, Looney, Livingston, Iggy hitting shots over a scrambling defense before I give the best shooters in the world nothing but time at the 3 point line.

[Epicurus]

Yes, I am sure that the GAMEPLAN was to loose screen containment and to slide slowly to open shooters. I think the Warrior offense was simply too fast for the Blazers and when combined with hot shooting, there will be trouble.

Do you really believe that having your roll defender sit back on the ball handler all night (as both Kanter and Collins did), putting all of the pressure on the man fighting over the screen, was a good gameplan? That it was that the warriors were simply too fast? Too fast for what? Neither big man had plans to trap, and there was no help off the ball from anyone else. That was the gameplan. Fight over the screen and hope that 2 of the best shooters of all time dont hit those shots before a man comes from behind to swipe at it

Better than using Kanter on the periphery? Hell yes.

[Epicurus]

Hell, next game how about a 2-2-1 full court press, forcing the Warriors to break it with their non-great three point shooters?

[monopoman]

Gotta learn what we can from this loss and use it as motivation. We lost game 1 of the semifinals too, same as then winning game 2 would be a great bounce back and a sign that we’re serious about making this series competitive.

Bare minimum I’d like to get to game 6 just to get another home game! A 5 game out would be still well outperforming as just getting to the wcf is incredible but I’d love if we could make this round competitive. We don’t get here often, might as well make it exciting!

Well Houston couldn't win either game 1 or 2 in the previous round obviously GSW were more healthy in games 1-2 vs. Houston. I feel KD being down makes this match-up a bit more fair though since we are without Nurkic.

[Wizenheimer]

Honestly, I think the game winner against OKC and the media hype since then has been the worst thing to happen to Damian Lillard.

To a certain degree, I think all of that has gotten to his head because he’s been pretty much hot trash since then.

This is a bad hot take. Please revisit the game video and come back to try again. They're defending him perfectly and making other players beat them. The other players are not.

it is absolutely amazing to me how so many supposed Blazer fans are so willing and so quick to crap on Lillard when he does things wrong. It's like the previous 7 years don't mean a thing

[Epicurus]

I'm not sure why so much here is about defense. The Warriors got their seasonal average offensively. The Blazers were well short of their seasonal offensive average and the Warriors defensive average. Missed open shots by the Blazers to me is more concerning than open shots taken by a team that gets and makes open shots often through the year.

[monopoman]

Honestly, I think the game winner against OKC and the media hype since then has been the worst thing to happen to Damian Lillard.

To a certain degree, I think all of that has gotten to his head because he’s been pretty much hot trash since then.

This is a bad hot take. Please revisit the game video and come back to try again. They're defending him perfectly and making other players beat them. The other players are not.

it is absolutely amazing to me how so many supposed Blazer fans are so willing and so quick to crap on Lillard when he does things wrong. It's like the previous 7 years don't mean a thing

He would have to go beyond bad for me to ever give him ****, Lillard is 100% the reason this team is where it is. Even in the Nuggets series he wasn't bad he was just a bit closer to average Lillard or maybe slightly above average. Yeah, CJ had a better series but that was mostly due to Lillard drawing the best defenders to him.

[Wizenheimer]

what I saw:

* yeah, Lillard had some bad turnovers, mainly because he was slow to recognize that Warrior secondary defenders who were constantly hedging to his side of the floor were were also dogging his passing lanes. At least 4 of his turnovers came off of that, maybe 5. On the other hand, Portland averaged 1.13 points/shot while Dame averaged 1.58 points/shot. Portland could have overcome their turnovers if so many of Dame's teammates weren't shooting like crap. Dame did his job in scoring considering the opportunities he had and that Portland never runs in any offense for him other than 'here's-the-ball-go-score'

* several times over the last 4 years, Stotts has tried CJ defending Klay. And every one of those times Klay has crushed CJ's defense. Why Stotts decided to try it again is mind boggling... and in this case mind boggling = stupid

* and speaking of stupid defense: we saw a return to 2-3 years ago when Stotts was employing some dumb-ass hybrid of Ice and drop defense on the PnR and screens, with a large portions of passive added. He'd gone away from that...thankfully...but back it was big time tonight against the absolute worst team ever to use that defense against. The open shots Curry, and occasionally Klay had, while a Blazer big spectated 10' away was just frigging stupid. Over and over and over. The difference between how Portland defended Curry and how the Warriors defended Dame couldn't have been more glaring. It will be an easy sweep for GS if Stotts doesn't $hitcan that stupid scheme and also come up with some way to relieve the pressure on Dame

* Mo was the good Mo tonight but my god Aminu has been awful over the last 8 games. He's almost unplayable at this point. Curry sucked too

* Van Gundy made a good point: after a draining, highly emotional win in a game 7 on the road, followed by a trip to the Bay, it's almost impossible to maintain focus and intensity. These guys aren't machines. I'd hope for a better performance in game 2, but the guy who really has to perform better is Stotts

[monopoman]

I mean even with how **** we played we did make it competitive a few more 3's fall and we might have stolen game 1. It's not like they blew us out by 30+ or somethings...

[The Sebastian Express]

what I saw:

* yeah, Lillard had some bad turnovers, mainly because he was slow to recognize that Warrior secondary defenders who were constantly hedging to his side of the floor were were also dogging his passing lanes. At least 4 of his turnovers came off of that, maybe 5. On the other hand, Portland averaged 1.13 points/shot while Dame averaged 1.58 points/shot. Portland could have overcome their turnovers if so many of Dame's teammates weren't shooting like crap. Dame did his job in scoring considering the opportunities he had and that Portland never runs in any offense for him other than 'here's-the-ball-go-score'

* several times over the last 4 years, Stotts has tried CJ defending Klay. And every one of those times Klay has crushed CJ's defense. Why Stotts decided to try it again is mind boggling... and in this case mind boggling = stupid

* and speaking of stupid defense: we saw a return to 2-3 years ago when Stotts was employing some dumb-ass hybrid of Ice and drop defense on the PnR and screens, with a large portions of passive added. He'd gone away from that...thankfully...but back it was big time tonight against the absolute worst team ever to use that defense against. The open shots Curry, and occasionally Klay had, while a Blazer big spectated 10' away was just frigging stupid. Over and over and over. The difference between how Portland defended Curry and how the Warriors defended Dame couldn't have been more glaring. It will be an easy sweep for GS if Stotts doesn't $hitcan that stupid scheme and also come up with some way to relieve the pressure on Dame

* Mo was the good Mo tonight but my god Aminu has been awful over the last 8 games. He's almost unplayable at this point. Curry sucked too

* Van Gundy made a good point: after a draining, highly emotional win in a game 7 on the road, followed by a trip to the Bay, it's almost impossible to maintain focus and intensity. These guys aren't machines. I'd hope for a better performance in game 2, but the guy who really has to perform better is Stotts

I agree with everything in this post.

I also suspect, or maybe hope, that Aminu's play this postseason will see him get a fair but not outrageous contract offer, and with intentions to move Zach into the starting lineup.

Also dear God I want our guys to either work on their hands this offseason or for us to target people who can catch a pass without fumbling.

[DaVoiceMaster]

And you think that somehow Enes Kanter is the ingredient to slow down Curry and Klay. only thing it would have done is open the middle and guarantee more, far more, second shots by the slashing Warriors.

Game would be a lot closer if the Warriors took wide open 2 point shots vs wide open 3 point shots.

[zzaj]

what I saw:

* yeah, Lillard had some bad turnovers, mainly because he was slow to recognize that Warrior secondary defenders who were constantly hedging to his side of the floor were were also dogging his passing lanes. At least 4 of his turnovers came off of that, maybe 5. On the other hand, Portland averaged 1.13 points/shot while Dame averaged 1.58 points/shot. Portland could have overcome their turnovers if so many of Dame's teammates weren't shooting like crap. Dame did his job in scoring considering the opportunities he had and that Portland never runs in any offense for him other than 'here's-the-ball-go-score'

* several times over the last 4 years, Stotts has tried CJ defending Klay. And every one of those times Klay has crushed CJ's defense. Why Stotts decided to try it again is mind boggling... and in this case mind boggling = stupid

* and speaking of stupid defense: we saw a return to 2-3 years ago when Stotts was employing some dumb-ass hybrid of Ice and drop defense on the PnR and screens, with a large portions of passive added. He'd gone away from that...thankfully...but back it was big time tonight against the absolute worst team ever to use that defense against. The open shots Curry, and occasionally Klay had, while a Blazer big spectated 10' away was just frigging stupid. Over and over and over. The difference between how Portland defended Curry and how the Warriors defended Dame couldn't have been more glaring. It will be an easy sweep for GS if Stotts doesn't $hitcan that stupid scheme and also come up with some way to relieve the pressure on Dame

* Mo was the good Mo tonight but my god Aminu has been awful over the last 8 games. He's almost unplayable at this point. Curry sucked too

* Van Gundy made a good point: after a draining, highly emotional win in a game 7 on the road, followed by a trip to the Bay, it's almost impossible to maintain focus and intensity. These guys aren't machines. I'd hope for a better performance in game 2, but the guy who really has to perform better is Stotts

I agree with everything in this post.

I also suspect, or maybe hope, that Aminu's play this postseason will see him get a fair but not outrageous contract offer, and with intentions to move Zach into the starting lineup.

Also dear God I want our guys to either work on their hands this offseason or for us to target people who can catch a pass without fumbling.

The only thing I disagree with is the idea that the Blazer bigs have defended out on screens the past couple of years as compared to the old ICE defense. It's looked to me like they've always (including the past couple of seasons) played it "safe" and hung back on high screens under Stotts, unless they were being aggressive in special situations.

The NBA in general tends to have a 'what have you done for me lately' attitude, and there are A LOT of good FAs this offseason. Aminu in these playoffs might have just played himself out of quite a bit of money. I can't really blame him. He has no dribble game and he's a bad shooter. He's a good defender, but there is $$$ in offense, not defense. I don't doubt he's trying his best...the inconsistency of his skill level is just getting exposed. I've said for years now that if opposing teams force Aminu to be the offensive relief valve in the offense, the Blazers aren't going to go very far. So far, that's mostly played out...

[zzaj]

Not to belabor issues...

...but another thing that I noticed in the last series with Denver, which showed it's ugly head again tonight, is that Kanter is doing a poor job of getting block position early in that option on offense. Against, Jokic and Milsap that is understandable, but against Green and Looney, it's unacceptable. Part of it is that Kanter tends to be the trailer on offense because he's often crashing the glass and getting rebounds, so it's natural he'll get to the block only after the defense is basically set. It actually reminds me of the way Aldridge used to "post up" 12-15 feet from the basket.

Kanter has a size, weight and skill advantage in the post against Green and Looney. He needs to establish deep position earlier and either get them in foul trouble or get easy buckets--preferably both.

[red_power]

Stotts should consider playing Turner more in this series instead of Kanter.
I mean really. Simply can't see Enes being a plus performer against this opponent. He gets a full Dramond Green's defensive treatment and he's a blackhole against GSW pick-n-roll catch-and-shoot offense.

At least blazers may try to play a switch everybody on defense as long as warriors don't have Durant with them and see what happens next.

[red_power]

Not to belabor issues...
Kanter has a size, weight and skill advantage in the post against Green and Looney. He needs to establish deep position earlier and either get them in foul trouble or get easy buckets--preferably both.

He may try to do that.. but I seriously doubt that's the best way for blazers to finish a possession