Pure_Basketball wrote:Brandon-Clyde wrote:Would Miami be looking as good as they are against a healthy Blazer squad? I think not
Miami don't have Jimmy Butler or Justise Winslow
While I do think the Blazers injuries have hurt them badly. I agree here. There seems to be this whitewashing of Portland's struggles as being due primarily to injuries. But here's the thing, Portland has been piling up losses against teams that are less talented than even an injury riddled Blazers. They've had losses to the Warriors, Cavs (w/o Love), Knicks, and a myriad of other terrible losses.
The injury excuse works when the team is playing healthy playoff teams. It doesn't pull when they're getting spanked by injured, garbage teams as they have spent a good portion of the season doing.
I very much dislike Stotts as the Blazers' coach. I haven't liked him for years, so it only makes sense that as the Blazers look worse I'd like him less. But even so, I'm not saying that the Blazers should fire him on the spot or anything. The Blazers do need to look at spending more money and bringing in some better assistant's though. Some guys with real track records of success. Because right now, this team just doesn't run much effective movement on offense, and their defense looks utterly lost.
The defense goes beyond talent. We're in January and miscommunication is still regular. Overhelping is still regular. Falling asleep off the ball is still regular. All of this is team-wide. A large portion of the team doesn't even play hard regularly, they don't dive for loose balls or scramble. At some point there has to be some admission that at least some portion of this falls back on the coaching staff.
This Portland team needs to do something though. Whether it's a trade. Resting good players. Playing the youngins and running plays for them to encourage development and confidence. It's VERY QUICKLY approaching the point to make decisions on the remainder of the season.
