BudTugly wrote:KqWIN wrote:BudTugly wrote:
Instructive. Pels putting on a clinic on how to defend Ptown. Gentry n his boys just shut down the guard play by blitzing it constantly.
We never do that on principle which in some ways I understand because overall we are either #1 or close to it. Still feels like our defense could be better against almost all evidence.
Yep, I had called POR the worse matchup because of the way we typically play defense, but NOP just makes it look so easy when they trap Lillard. Even if it's Mirotic blitzing, Dame looks useless. They also don't have the shooters to punish the defense when they are scrambling.
They don’t have nearly the roster we have in terms of executing defense but they sold out to wreck Portland’s guards. Portland doesn’t have playmakers away from the guard spots so everybody becomes uncomfortable when the ball has to be worked around some.
Utah has also defended Portland well at times, it’s not like we got swept on the season series. But it is instructive to see a lesser overall defensive team wreck the Blazers with a simple game plan and some effort.
I just imagined Dame and CJ hitting long jumpers over and over against us because that's what our defense concedes. Maybe I should have had more faith in Quin to start blitzing...but I just thought they had the personnel to exploit our base defense. I was much more comfortable with WB running at Gobert in the paint then letting those two pop off long jumpers with Gobert dropping in the paint. Little did I know Playoff P would roast us from distance anyways
We also struggle with POR's defense. They play the same way as us, and we struggle to hit those pull ups off the dribble. Davis and Holiday are offensive threats that we just don't have right now. OKC plays a more aggressive style, and I was hoping we could pass around it, but their length gave us problems. Mainly with PG smothering Ingles out of the game. Still, I think we'd look at that game differently if Rubio had a better shooting night.
