Game 67: Portland vs Philadelphia 4:00pm Root,Root+

[PDXKnight]

Great game if you are in team tank, but a pretty rough loss for the make the playoffs camp.

I'm happy to have lost but that doesn't mean I don't want Chauncey gone asap even if he's helping the tank

[Moonbeam]

I've done an update of an earlier post where I compared ESPN's Win Probability to the outcome of games. One thing I've looked at is a moving snapshot of the last 10 games of the season and how well Portland's performed relative to expectations. For example, If Portland wins a game in which ESPN judged its chances at the beginning of the game to win at 65%, that game would be considered as +0.35 wins above expectations, and if Portland loses a game in which ESPN judged its chances at the beginning of the game to win at 40%, that game would be considered as -0.4 wins above expectations. Adding these differentials across the most recent 10 games takes into account both Portland's performance and the schedule difficulty.

Here's the graph:



You can see that that great run to start the season really stands out, but after 20 games, Portland's mostly been underperforming. From Games 21-67, Portland's Last 10 game performance has been below expectations for 34 of those 47 games, and at least 1 game below expectations for 19 of those 47 games. It hasn't been pretty.

During tonight's game, ESPN judged Portland's chances of winning as high as 97.8% when Portland was up 112-99 with 5:52 to go. It's the 9th game Portland has lost despite having a win probability estimated at 90% or higher:



Portland obviously ended up with a win probability of 100% in each of its 31 wins, but winning only 31/40 = 77.5% of the games in which they achieve at least a 90% win probability indicates more badly blown losses than would be expected.

[Pattycakes]

Part of me really doesn’t want to see us get swept in a playoff series so I’ll probably choose this as an opportunity to be thankful

[monopoman]

Great game if you are in team tank, but a pretty rough loss for the make the playoffs camp.

I'm happy to have lost but that doesn't mean I don't want Chauncey gone asap even if he's helping the tank

Well if Dame loses faith in him I could see him getting the axe soon, I have no clue why they gave him a 5 year deal though. Untested coaches should not get that kind of contract on their first head coaching gig. We saw how "good" Jason Kidd looked with the Nets, I guess at this point Kidd is probably a pretty mediocre coach but it took years to get there.

The only player turned coach I can think of doing well early on in recent years is Steve Kerr. If this does get us another great player out of our pick this year it might turn out for the best, either allowing us to make a win-now move or we have already jumpstarted our youth development for the post Dame era.

[HoopsFanAZ]

They almost screwed up and won the game. Dame had an off night shooting but played for his teammates. Nice to see. They’re going to have difficulty playing badly enough to lose enough with guys getting healthy?

[DaVoiceMaster]

That sucked. Why didn't Nurk bend his knees at all when shooting those free throws? Just needed one more.

[DaVoiceMaster]

I'm all for a higher draft pick, but I have a difficult time hoping they lose. That was a winnable game with Lillard having an off night. This team has struggled from the line this season and it bit them in the ass last night. I like the aggressiveness Reddish shows and just wish Sharpe had the same attack mentality. I think he could do so much more than he's shown so far. I know, he is young and inexperienced, but that doesn't keep me from wanting to see more.

[HoopsFanAZ]

I don’t want Chauncy gone at all. He, Dame, and Cronin are on the same page. Keep the losses coming while playing hard.

[GEE]

Great Game!!! Can't believe we pulled it out. Seriously though... I thought it was one of our better games of the year. Dame and Simons in particular, played really well I thought. Loved the telecaster talk/spin about Simons running the second unit. Dividing and spreading the two's minutes throughout a game is key. Well done in this one. Grant and the others played well and were locked in. Bit of a playoff game feel.

The game felt like a test of where our team is at currently, and I don't think we are more than a good off-season away from being really good. What Cronin and Chauncey are building takes time, with several layers of moves, to put us in the position we are in, going into this summer. We are in great shape IMO, with financials in order and a crop of assets in picks and players, to either retain hopefully, or use in a trade. I think we could be one BIG MAN move away, regardless if we trade Nurkic or not. We are just fine talent-wise 1-3, and maybe 4 with a little help, but the interior painted area needs to be much better.

Very few big changes needed really. Starts with Nurkic obviously, and I'm not 100% convinced he's cooked, but my patience has worn way thin. I think Cronin must feel similar, and will hopefully fix or upgrade the Center position. Same can be said with Winslow... Love Him, but can we expect him to be reliable at any point this year, or beyond. I'd love Winslow healthy at the 4. He allows Grant to slide to the 3 for parts of a game, instead of Grant having to play the 4 all game long.

A repeat of last year's stealth tank allotting us that extra pick should help things too. Cronin has all the tools he needs I think, to solidify a deep playoff caliber team for the next few years, if he can just make the right move/s, in the off-season. I'm personally excited about what could be just ahead.

[PDXKnight]

Great game if you are in team tank, but a pretty rough loss for the make the playoffs camp.

I'm happy to have lost but that doesn't mean I don't want Chauncey gone asap even if he's helping the tank

Well if Dame loses faith in him I could see him getting the axe soon, I have no clue why they gave him a 5 year deal though. Untested coaches should not get that kind of contract on their first head coaching gig. We saw how "good" Jason Kidd looked with the Nets, I guess at this point Kidd is probably a pretty mediocre coach but it took years to get there.

The only player turned coach I can think of doing well early on in recent years is Steve Kerr. If this does get us another great player out of our pick this year it might turn out for the best, either allowing us to make a win-now move or we have already jumpstarted our youth development for the post Dame era.

Many coaches were once players so I'd disagree in that sense. Monty and udoka (solely as a coach) were decent. Definitely being a good or great player doesn't lock in coaching success in any sport though. I wonder why star players tend to fizzle more than other former players, perhaps they're used to iso ball?

[PDXKnight]

Blazers have lost 16 games after leading by double digits, damn I was close with 15, that was a total guess

I don't think teams just do this, def a product of a bad coach in general

[monopoman]

I'm happy to have lost but that doesn't mean I don't want Chauncey gone asap even if he's helping the tank

Well if Dame loses faith in him I could see him getting the axe soon, I have no clue why they gave him a 5 year deal though. Untested coaches should not get that kind of contract on their first head coaching gig. We saw how "good" Jason Kidd looked with the Nets, I guess at this point Kidd is probably a pretty mediocre coach but it took years to get there.

The only player turned coach I can think of doing well early on in recent years is Steve Kerr. If this does get us another great player out of our pick this year it might turn out for the best, either allowing us to make a win-now move or we have already jumpstarted our youth development for the post Dame era.

Many coaches were once players so I'd disagree in that sense. Monty and udoka (solely as a coach) were decent. Definitely being a good or great player doesn't lock in coaching success in any sport though. I wonder why star players tend to fizzle more than other former players, perhaps they're used to iso ball?

Well we also saw the Steve Nash case blow up in the Nets face, Harden called him the most clueless coach he ever had. I think it's more players that good typically don't have to understand the game at a high level. Either that or they just understand the game more in their own way and can take advantage, so you see Udoka do better when he had to work harder to be even pretty good at the game.

It would make sense with someone like Nash who just had incredible instincts when playing the game. Even still coaching is nothing like playing, just because Lebron and Jordan were great players doesn't mean that it translates to coaching.

[JasonStern]

Read on Twitter

[BNM]

Read on Twitter

Thanks Chauncey.

[JasonStern]

What a great game.
If you started with this squad and they stayed healthy you would be probably fighting for the 5th seed.

This is a Blazers board. This is just a constant reminder of roster mismanagement here.

[JasonStern]

The only player turned coach I can think of doing well early on in recent years is Steve Kerr. If this does get us another great player out of our pick this year it might turn out for the best, either allowing us to make a win-now move or we have already jumpstarted our youth development for the post Dame era.

Counter theory - role players make good to great coaches. Stars don't. Kerr was a role player. Riley? Role player. Jackson? Role player. Carlisle? Role player. Udoka? Role player. Etc. Players that had natural ability never had to work as hard and couldn't teach because the answer was "just be awesome", which got the all-star tier coaches through their player careers.

Edit: monopoman beat me to this