03-20-2021, 10:43 AM
I don't know that we can put this on any one player. The offense just died. At 7:28 we had a six point lead. Over the next 7:15 we had Maxi miss three 3's, KP missed two shots. JRich missed two shots. Luka had two TO's and missed three shots. It was ugly.
I found the contrast of the last three games interesting. LAC plays with force defensively late in the game. They can aggressively put a bigger defender on Luka and make his life miserable (but, he managed to be a superstar in Wednesday's game and overcame). Portland comes at you with force offensively. Lillard and McCollum seemed to hit every late game shot they took. You can't afford a miss late in the game against them (let alone 10 misses and two TO's). What I find noteworthy is we don't bring "force" offensively or defensively...at least not against the better teams.
Kanter and Melo did their best work when Lillard sat. We didn't have an answer for either of them (WCS and DFS might have helped here). Portland was actually net positive when Lillard sat. We were negative when Luka sat. They got 34 from their bench. We got 25 mainly because Burke had a good run. It was there for the taking and then suddenly it was gone.
I found the contrast of the last three games interesting. LAC plays with force defensively late in the game. They can aggressively put a bigger defender on Luka and make his life miserable (but, he managed to be a superstar in Wednesday's game and overcame). Portland comes at you with force offensively. Lillard and McCollum seemed to hit every late game shot they took. You can't afford a miss late in the game against them (let alone 10 misses and two TO's). What I find noteworthy is we don't bring "force" offensively or defensively...at least not against the better teams.
Kanter and Melo did their best work when Lillard sat. We didn't have an answer for either of them (WCS and DFS might have helped here). Portland was actually net positive when Lillard sat. We were negative when Luka sat. They got 34 from their bench. We got 25 mainly because Burke had a good run. It was there for the taking and then suddenly it was gone.