THEY'RE BACK Game 1: Portland vs. Denver 7:00pm Wed SNW

[Fitz303]

If CJ had a normal game, they are right in this. Just game 1. Plenty to be encouraged by.

First the Suns break a franchise record for 3's and now the Nuggets go off. I hope they start looking into their 3 point defense soon

[Matt800]

Well I'm fairly impressed with this team. Looks like they are better than the team that played Denver in the playoffs. If they can continue to get better I think they should have a pretty successful season.

[GEE]

That was just all around ugly. Baze is not a 3, Hood is not a 4, and Collins is not a 5.

[Sinobas]

The main goal of the game is to put the ball through the hoop, and the Nuggets did that a hell of a lot better than us tonight.

I wonder if we'll end up missing Aminu and Harkless more than we realized.

[Sinobas]

And our home opening streak is over.

[GEE]

On the positive side, Dame and Whiteside looked good. Hopefully there is a very long film session on this game, because I think alot of lessons can be taken away from it, especially the player rotations. There are so many things we did poorly, but some good things too. Learn from it, and don't take 10 game to do it.

[JasonStern]

Read on Twitter

[Wickzki]

Hassan don't give a **** as long as he paid Whiteside.

[Wizenheimer]

* Nuggets were hot from the arc but that can happen when a team gets a bunch of uncontested and poorly contested three's. Sure seems like I remember some really bad perimeter defense from the pre-season. Blazers have to clean that up

* only 19 points from the Blazer bench on 6-22 shooting with 1 assist vs 4 turnovers. That's ugly and it should make Stotts consider staggered rotations instead of that platoon stuff he tried in the 1st half

* for 5 off-seasons now Olshey has refused to add another back court play-maker. The offense is almost always ragged when Dame sits. CJ can't run the offense and I don't see anybody else that can. It's all on Dame and that's a big burden

* Doris Burke has the hots for Jokic. She had them last year and the temp is still sky high.

[Roy The Natural]

The main goal of the game is to put the ball through the hoop, and the Nuggets did that a hell of a lot better than us tonight.

I wonder if we'll end up missing Aminu and Harkless more than we realized.

I don't think we'll miss both. But I do think preseason should have clearly taught us that we needed at least one of them.

I don't really want to be THAT guy. But I was pretty concerned about quite a bit of stuff that I saw tonight.

- Tolliver has looked unplayable about 99.9% of the time he's seen the floor in both preseason and this first game. He's just an abomination on defense, and he's not hitting shots, nor getting open regularly for shots on offense. Which means... the Blazers have one player capable of playing the 4 against regular matchups.... Zach Collins. They need to find a way to get another player who can man the 4. Whatever it takes. 1st rounder + Trent for some salary, just nab a backup 4 from somewhere, because currently there isn't a single backup 4 on the roster.

- CJ..... yea, the guy is still the same blackhole. Every year, I hope against hope that there will be some revelation in his mind where he learns to pass up on taking excessive amounts of bad shots, and instead sends the ball to a teammate. But here we are, and the guy is still just forcing up garbage. CJ was 5-18.... he probably should have been something like 4-12. He just needs to learn when to stop taking bad shots, especially early in the shot clock.

- Bazemore.... So, I want to say he's better than Turner. He definitely makes a different, and more discernible impact defensively. But he feels out of control on offense. He was 1 for 7 tonight. But it might as we have been 1-13, it felt like he was pulling a CJ impression and continuously forcing up garbage.

- Simons. Well, I've been touting Simons all offseason, but it's been clear that he's either not a "breakout" player this year, or it's going to take quite some time for him to reach that point.



There were a lot of positives, but in my opinion some of the scary holes on this team are readily apparent. I literally have no idea what Portland is going to do about the 4 without the moving of some assets.

[Roy The Natural]

* Nuggets were hot from the arc but that can happen when a team gets a bunch of uncontested and poorly contested three's. Sure seems like I remember some really bad perimeter defense from the pre-season. Blazers have to clean that up

* only 19 points from the Blazer bench on 6-22 shooting with 1 assist vs 4 turnovers. That's ugly and it should make Stotts consider staggered rotations instead of that platoon stuff he tried in the 1st half

* for 5 off-seasons now Olshey has refused to add another back court play-maker. The offense is almost always ragged when Dame sits. CJ can't run the offense and I don't see anybody else that can. It's all on Dame and that's a big burden

* Doris Burke has the hots for Jokic. She had them last year and the temp is still sky high.

Point 1 - Agree - Portland wasn't good defending the perimeter. But I think it's important to note that Denver was similarly bad, we just missed open shots all night.

Point 2 - Who would you suggest. I'd argue there's very few attainable steadying backup pointguards who can do a good job of running the second unit for Portland.

Point 3 - I'll abstain.

[skywalker33]

Very sloppy game by both sides but I see some tough battles ahead between these two teams.

[Roy The Natural]

Very sloppy game by both sides but I see some tough battles ahead between these two teams.

The game was decided by who hit their open 3s. You'll get justified bemoaning by Blazer fans for the bad 3pt defense, but honestly the Nuggets defense was pretty garbage as well. Portland just couldn't hit shots. Kind of feels like one team played it's starters in the last game of preseason, and the other didn't.

But really, I don't think we learned much this game. Seemed like an anomaly more than anything. That's not to say that Portland is better than Denver, just that Denver hit a bunch of open 3s as they should, and Portland missed a bunch of open 3s as they shouldn't.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Blazers pissed away a great first half opportunity with Jokic on the bench. Why did CJ disappear after the first 8 minutes of the game? Bazemore sucked offensively. Loved him defensively. Still not a fan of Simon's. I've been down on Collins his first two seasons, but was wondering why they went away from him. He sid well in the first half. Gotta get more out of the bench, as well.

[Norm2953]

It's as simple as Stotts is going to need some time to figure out the best way for this group of players to
win games.

We've lost a number of guys who played a lot of rotation minutes in Aminu, Harkless and Turner and
we're going to miss Seth Curry's reliable 3 point shooting. Nurk's overall game in time will be
compensated by Hassan Whiteside athleticism but Hassan likely is a low post scorer ala DeAndre
Jordan. Overall the team is going to have nights when they will struggle offensively to score points
particularly if either Dame/CJ are off for they have nobody in their front court who can consistently
make their open shots. I agree with the sentiments that Anthony Toliver looks done at 34 and perhaps
if that's the case, Little is going to get PT.

[zzaj]

Blazers played 90s, inside-out basketball and Denver played modern, outside-in basketball.

I noticed Tolliver wasn't back in the second half. That guy looked like gaaaaarbage. I'm sure he'll get hot at times during the season, but blech. He was pretty bad on both ends of the court.

Right now the Blazers have 3 players in Tolliver, Simons and Bazemore that are kind of one trick ponies. Blazers are going to miss the all around game that Aminu and Harkless had.

Blazers don't really have a consistent SF. Mario, I guess is the best option there, but he's best in the open court and the Blazers have never been a running team.

CJ stunk it up for the most part. I wonder are we EVER going to see a Lillard/CJ stretch of games where both have great nights?

Positives:
The team looked WORLDS better to me than any game in the preseason. Yes, perimeter defense is going to be a problem. Yes, the Blazers will have to hit their 3pt shots in order to be competitive. But I think they are going to be ok if this type of game is the baseline.

I was impressed with Whiteside and Skal. It was nice to see some above the rim play from the Center position. Whiteside has tremendously quick hands. I thought he had a great game until I looked at Andre Drummond's line for tonight...sheesh. (32/23/4 with 2ast and 3 stls).

On to the next one...

[Nonstop]

Hassan don't give a **** as long as he paid Whiteside.

Idk 19 rebounds kinda says otherwise

[GEE]

I'd like to see something like this, for minutes distributed each half until Nurkic gets back:

Dame(16) / Simons(8)
CJ(16) / Baze(8)
Hood(16) / Mario(4) / Baze(4)
Collins(10) / Skal(6) / Mario(8)
Whiteside(14) / Collins(4) / Skal(6)

When the BEAST returns:

Dame(16) / Simons(8)
CJ(16) / Baze(8)
Hood(14) / Mario(10)
Collins(14) / Skal(10)
Whiteside(14) / Nurkic(10)

[Village Idiot]

Not a bad loss considering how poorly we shot. Denver was motivated and has continuity in their favor. They had the same staring five as last season versus 2 new starters for us and also only one new rotation guy to integrate versus all of our entire bench(Skal and Simons played so little for us they really weren't in last years rotation)

One thing that would concern me greatly if I were a Nuggets fan is Jokic's weight and conditioning. While he isn't as reliant on his athleticism as a guy like Zion, at some point the laws of physics and physiology are going to line up in his disfavor and he's going to get and injury and it will probably be a lagging one. It's also very disappointing that a professional isn't willing to keep himself in shape. His body is his primary work tool and he is obliged to take care of it.

This is totally one of those season's where I can see the Nuggets getting the better record but us getting further in the playoffs when we get Nurkic back and they lose Jokic.

[BlazersBroncos]

There is quite a bit of chicken little'ing for this being the 1st game of the season. We have tons of new guys, and played a team with a better overall talent base and some of the best player continuity in the league. I expected a loss.

CJ was going ISO far too much, there was a stretch in the 4th where he just forced it like 3 times in a row.

Whiteside scared me in preseason but given his personality it shouldn't be too surprising that he didn't turn it on until it mattered. He was great out there and should for a top tier defensive duo w/ Zach. Speaking of Zach, I really liked what I saw. He airballed that 3 when it really mattered, but other than that he was clearly impacting tons of shots on defense and showed some strong deep post plays that he wouldn't have made last season. I think the PF/C duo of Zach / Hassan is going to be the least of our worries.

Bazemore is going to be a problem on offense if he plays as erratic as he did tonight. He was forcing his midrange shots and looked off the second the ball left his hands when shooting 3's. Hopefully its a symptom of a new system, but he needs to know his role. And that is to stay off the ball on offense, pressure like hell on defense and hit open 3's. You don't want this dude with the ball in his hands unless its an open 3. He is just too out of control.

I am not surprised or worried about Ant struggling. He is a baby getting minutes in his first meaningful game. He will struggle defensively this season and be up/down on offense. I am not worried about him, albeit I am worried about the idea that Stotts has that he can run the offense. He isn't anywhere near ready for that. He is a scorer who should be running around off ball to get open shots and when needed, ISO a bit.

Mario seemed invisible. I was hoping for a better game from him. I still believe he is going to have a mini-breakout year.

Dame was Dame for the most part, at times too unselfish actually IMO especially in the 1st half.

Skal was surprising and looks to be a competent offensive player. I think he may be our primary backup PF moving forward, as Tolliver seems unplayable and should be on the bench waving a towel and mentoring the children.

Hood had a nice game. Struggled for a minute, but made some big 3's and had a nice postup. And was competent on defense.

The whole team struggled w/ rotations, but that should improve with time. Will it be as good as last year? Not likely with the subtraction of the length Aminu and Hark provided.

I think we really are going to need Gasol back and ready for 12-15mpg. Sliding Skal back to PF removed Tolliver from the rotation, removes Hood / Mario from playing tons of PF minutes and slides Kent up from SF to SG (He really does seem too skinny to play SF, surprised on his body type honestly, but he will have to play some). Hot take on rotation w/ Gasol:

PG - Damian Lillard (34) / Anfernee Simons (14)
SG - CJ McCollum (34) / Kent Bazemore (14)
SF - Rodney Hood (30) / Kent Bazemore (10) / Mario Herzonja (8)
PF - Zach Collins (22) / Skal Labissiere (16) / Mario Herzonja (10)
C - Hassan Whiteside (28) / Paul Gasol (14) / Zach Collins (6)

Also, two things need to be etched in stone in the back of Terry's head: 1) ALWAYS HAVE ONE OF DAMIAN OR CJ ON THE FLOOR 2) ALWAYS HAVE ONE OF ZACH OR HASSAN ON THE FLOOR. These platoon rotations have always driven me freaking nuts.