Western Conference Semi-Finals Thread: Blazers vs Warriors

[DreDay]

Why doesn't Kerr trap him? The Clippers until they got crippled neutralized him completely and Kerr is just letting him play.

No idea. It baffles me because we were so good last season in scheming and right now we're just letting Lillard get everything.

[wco81]

Draymond shooting 8-12 on 3s is not something the Warriors can depend on.

Need scoring from another source, even when Curry comes back.

[BaggageHandler]

Draymond shooting 8-12 on 3s is not something the Warriors can depend on.

Need scoring from another source, even when Curry comes back.

Iguodala and Barnes both sucked tonight.

[cpower]

ok i started another thread outside, and hopefully gets some attention from the team.

we are just getting too comfortable winning 73 games and having a easy route through rockets and portland. Spurs and Cavs will punish us if we are not ready to defend.

[Sleepy51]

Barnes continues to find new and interesting ways to lose shooters. Sooner or later people are going to realize that he is not really defensively "versatile." He can guard bigger players in the pos isolation. But that's the only thing he does well on D. He is not a competent perimeter defender and can not guard wings. He's not defensivley versatile he's defensively peculiar in that he's a small guy to be a good post up defender, but that is not versatility. He is and has always been a smallish stretch 4. Right now he's just a 4 cuz he can't hit the shots that stretch the d.

You really think Barnes is the reason they're going to lose this game?

They're unconscious from 3 and most of it is being scored by Lillard, who is not being guarded by Barnes.

Cheap shot to single him out.

Nothing in my post was citing Barnes as the reason we lost. I was pointing out a specific fallacy about his defense. This game was a good illustration of it, but Barnes has been a poor perimeter defender his entire career, we don't generally need him to be much of a perimeter defender. We have several others who do that job. Really, the point of my post is more so that when Barnes leaves, we don't really need to replace a "3 who is a versatile defende." We need to replace a stretch 4 who can defend the post. All my post said is that he is not "defensively versatile." That's all I pointed out, but a hit dog is gonna holler.

[East Bay Sports]

Barnes wasn't the reason we lost, but it is funny to see him continue to shrink offensively in games when we need him to step up.

The defense being so pathetic is just icing.

get this man a max contract!

[Kuya]

Al Farouq Aminu >>>>>>>>>> Harrison Barnes

[GS Warriors 1]

Poor defensive performance, mixed in with some hot Portland shooting, and this is the result. Offensive execution wasn't good, either. We'll see what happens in game 4. I'm confident that they can bounce back, the team is going to be entering Monday a pissed off, focused bunch.

[wco81]

Some of the shots were ridiculous though, especially in the last 5 minutes, Lillard hit two contested 3s and McCollum hit one, off the dribble.

[OptionZero]

Amazing shotmaking from Lillard/McCollum to counter Klay and Green, and just unbelievable shooting from dudes like Aminu and Crabbe and the rest.

Meanwhile the rest of GSW didn't show up at all. Barnes AND iggy were disappointing on both ends. **** Aminu took Barnes on the baseline at the end of the game and that was just symbolic of how disappointing HB was, dude has no heart man. Iggy has playmaking responsibilities, wish he shot better, but Barnes just needs to beast on Lillard and McCollum and did jack ****. Really sad

Clark had some buckets but later in the game looked scared, Barbosa made some shots but was helpless on defense. Speights doesn't know where the **** to go on defense. Bogut looked slow. Ezeli didn't follow up his great performance, let Lillard/McCollum turn the corner too much.

I mean, what is Kerr supposed to do? you can't field effective lineups with just two good players. We let POR get flow early and never recovered.

Two more days of recovery for Curry - will we bring him back? He might be the shot in the arm we need . . . He said he could play today in theory but didn't push it. Tomorrow he gets 3 v 3 work, and then we have to decide.

Poor play on both ends but too much shooting from POR to overcome, even when we had mini spurts

[East Bay Sports]

Some of the shots were ridiculous though, especially in the last 5 minutes, Lillard hit two contested 3s and McCollum hit one, off the dribble.

Amazing what happens if you let a team get confident. A good majority of their 3s were wide open. All of Aminus. Several of Lillard's in the first half. Crabbe had easy looks throughout.

[ILOVEIT]

Some of the shots were ridiculous though, especially in the last 5 minutes, Lillard hit two contested 3s and McCollum hit one, off the dribble.

I'm of the opinion that players go off once they've been given a chance to establish a something against a softer defense. Once players start going off it's too late.

[Impuniti]

Barnes continues to find new and interesting ways to lose shooters. Sooner or later people are going to realize that he is not really defensively "versatile." He can guard bigger players in the pos isolation. But that's the only thing he does well on D. He is not a competent perimeter defender and can not guard wings. He's not defensivley versatile he's defensively peculiar in that he's a small guy to be a good post up defender, but that is not versatility. He is and has always been a smallish stretch 4. Right now he's just a 4 cuz he can't hit the shots that stretch the d.

You really think Barnes is the reason they're going to lose this game?

They're unconscious from 3 and most of it is being scored by Lillard, who is not being guarded by Barnes.

Cheap shot to single him out.

Are you serious right now? He was guarding Aminu, who went all in. He was 8-9, 4-5 from 3. I posted something I heard on TV some maybe a number might be off but here it is. Aminu averages 10p/games during regular season, 13p/game during PO, 18p/game in this series, 23p with 8 mins left in this game. That's who Barnes is guarding. He was awful today, offensively and defensively. He wasn't the reason the Warriors lost, there's several reasons for that. That doesn't stop him from being awful. I hear one more person defending Barnes before he earns that right, I'm coming with a stunner and finishing it with the people's elbow.

I know this is probably an unpopular opinion but Bogut has been Jekyll & Hyde this playoff. From one game where he plays good or great, to the next where he's awful or invisible. I'm including the games vs Houston who are pretty bad as well. I have much more faith in Bogut, but Barnes needs to raise his game when Steph is back (because he's not doing it while he's out, that much is clear).

Kerr needed to trap Dame. I also don't understand if this was a coaching error, player execution or an issue of both, but the perimeter defense was awful. Why is this not a priority, they're not good in the paint. At all. Plumlee is still looking to find his manhood that keeps getting taken from him every game. Why is the team not focusing on 3 point or long 2s? I'm going to give Kerr some blame here.

Iggy, Barnes, Bogut, Livingston, & Kerr were awful today. All of them. Bench was mediocre. You can beat the top 6-9 teams in the NBA when you have 4/6 top players without Steph all playing great and the other 2 being at least average. You can't have only two of them doing well and expecting to win, not without Curry. Almost everyone needs to be great without Steph to beat these kinds of teams. Anyways, I think they can make adjustments for Game 4 and fix some issues. Clamp down on 3s. GS was the best defending team at them during the season so it's time to show it. Doubtful that they are that hot next game, and that all 4 of the players from today will be that bad.

Klay was poor defensively I thought, but it's somewhat understandable as he has the burned to score and defend the best player. I think he got 0 assists and rebounds as well. Very good on offense. Green was a freaking monster. I love this man. WHAT A MAN! I'm assuming at this point that Curry plays game 5. I just hope he's not too rusty because he was awful vs Houston on game 4. He will play 3v3 tomorrow with the bench, and they're going to see where he's at. I'm guessing they wait until he does a 5v5 Tuesday and bring him for game 5 on Wednesday.

[cpower]

Aminu was wide open and kept scoring, crabble hit a few and then we just let Lillard get to his zone. I think this is definitely a coaching mistake, you should let this portland team get to the lane and we will own them down low by having Bogut/Ezeli/Green to contest every shot. Without Curry we can't match the firepower of the portland threes. Can you imagine if Green not scoring 37 points? this was going to be another 30 points blowout.

[likashing]

This team somehow think they can win by out gunning the Blazers without Steph. They key is defense. It is embarrassing they still don't get it and they get complacent easily.

With Steph out, you would expect them to be extra focused and play hard nosed defense. Instead, they come out thinking they will just outscore the Blazers.

Gave up 120 points. Worst ass effort this playoffs except game 2's first half.

If you look back since game 2. They played like **** in the first half, turned in on and maybe got a bit lucky and things fell their way to get a W. Tonight, it was just a continuation from game 2 first half. Same crappy overconfident play.

[Phase 3]

Draymond and Klay showed up to fight tonight. I can't say the same for everyone else. Bogut took himself out of the game with fouls yet again...Iguodala played like he didn't really care that much....Barnes was Barnes....and Livingston was just out of it for some reason. The Warriors can't afford to have those kind of performances from those guys in the playoffs...especially when Curry is not playing. Let's be honest. Curry can cover up a lot of crap with his amazing scoring and playmaking. The role players on this team just didn't play hard enough for the Warriors to be able to win a playoff game on the road with Curry hurt. Let's see if they bring better effort and more urgency in game 4.

[Phase 3]

This team somehow think they can win by out gunning the Blazers without Steph. They key is defense. It is embarrassing they still don't get it and they get complacent easily.

With Steph out, you would expect them to be extra focused and play hard nosed defense. Instead, they come out thinking they will just outscore the Blazers.

Gave up 120 points. Worst ass effort this playoffs except game 2's first half.

If you look back since game 2. They played like **** in the first half, turned in on and maybe got a bit lucky and things fell their way to get a W. Tonight, it was just a continuation from game 2 first half. Same crappy overconfident play.

Exactly. Without Curry, they can't outgun the Blazers...especially in Portland. They have to play hard and bring a blue collar mentality to the game in order to win without Steph.

[NBAfan3024]

Bad defensive effort

[Coxy]

K we need our MVP all time player back K thanks.

[Mylie10]

K we need our MVP all time player back K thanks.

But the doctor might say;




Even if Steph says;