January 18th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Portland Trailblazers - 21-24
We lost last game, and it sucked, but it was a good game overall and I'm coming into tonight somewhat encouraged. If the team plays even 80% as well tonight as we did last game, this should be a win. That's great. Tonight we play the Portland Trailblazers, who have lost 2 of their last 3 and currently sit at 27-19, good for 4th in the West. Speaking realistically, we really need to get this win tonight: despite last game being an understandable loss, it was still a loss, and a road loss at that, so we've got to start fixing that road record a little bit. Assuming victory tonight, we'll be 2-2 on this road trip thus far, and while that's not optimal it's also not horrible. Got to get the victory though, so let's look at who we're up against:
Offensive Rating: 10th
Defensive Rating: 15th
Rebounds per game: 1st
Assists per game: 21st
Steals per game: 27th
Blocks per game: 17th
2pt percentage: 18th
3pt percentage: 15th.
We are dealing with a team which is about as good on defense as Golden State are this year, but which are much less dynamic offensively. Portland's offense is far less motion oriented, features a lot less passing, and which is far less efficient from everywhere on the floor. Portland also features Damien Lillard and C.J. McCollum, both fantastic players and scorers but both players our team has experience dealing with to a high level of success. Moore and Jrue worked well on them both in the playoffs last year, and while that doesn't carry over precisely, it should give our team the confidence coming in to put in effort on that side of the ball.
Obviously Lillard is their main guy. Averaging 26/4/6 on 44% from the floor and 38% from three, he's having a pretty efficient year despite his high usage rate and his reliance on an outside game. He's shooting well, although his shot selection leaves a little to be desired, and he's still pretty easy to exploit on defense: opponents shoot 6% better than their averages from deep when guarded by Lillard, and a little bit (1.5%) better at the rim too, although he's pretty decent guarding the midrange. If Jrue can manage to end up defended by Lillard on switches, and commits to driving, we should be able to see Jrue control Lillard on both ends of the floor.
After that is McCollum, averaging 20/4/2 on 46% from the floor and 35% from three. He's having some inconsistency issues from outside right now: he's had games where he's gone 2 for 7, then 5 for 11 within a few days of each other. He had two games of 0 for 5 from deep within a week of each other at the end of last month. If he's on, he's on, but if he's off he might just be off completely. As always with McCollum, the goal is to force him to drive but giving him little room at the arc: he shoots less than 20% of his shots at the rim, and while he's fairly efficient from that range (56%) he's far from automatic: to compare him to Jrue, Jrue shoots 67% from the same range. Taking him out of his rhythm early will be important, but if we can do it, it shouldn't be too hard to keep him off all game.
Nurkic is having a great year for Portland so far. Averaging 15/10/3, he's recorded a 5x5 this season as well as his first career triple double. He's averaging a career high in blocks per game, as well as a team best +11 net rating. He's also averaging a career best PER of 23.6, so he's having a good year! He's also shooting threes now. The good sign is that he's shooting them at a little under 13%. The vast majority of his work comes down low, but if he can be baited into taking shots from distance, that's a great way to neutralise his offensive ability. He's an improved defender, but someone like AD should still be able to put him in the mix without too much trouble, especially when it comes to the pick and roll: Nurkic has trouble with his decision making, so forcing him to make choices in switches or the pick and roll could pay dividends. Straight up, man to man, he's pretty solid, so we can't let him get away with only facing isolation plays - that's where a motion offense like ours can be comes in handy.
So yeah, let's do it, get the win, and #DoItBig!
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Originally Posted by bahmamamba
