Game #37: Portland Trailblazers 101 Toronto Raptors 99

[G__Deane]

Anthony Davis declines max contract offer from Lakers, will enter free agency. This means he can now command up to $202 million over five years as opposed to the $146 million over four years that the Lakers are currently able to offer. What a f'd up world we live in where players get paid 40-$50M to drop a round ball through a round hoop for our entertainment ....

[Zak24gege]

OG is only 22 so yeah you gotta be patient. But the rest, no you don't have to give him 40 minutes when he's not earning it with his 20-25. In the NBA, you force your coach to give you minutes and OG looks too uninterested far too often.

No intensity, no hustle. Dude looks half asleep

Call it coordination, basketball sense or just skills, OG definitely has something that limits his ability to create off the bounce. Can he get better, yes. Will he ever be an all-star...nope. Imagine on an offensively challenged team, as the third option he has plenty of chances to contribute. He's scored 10 or more points a total of 4 times in past 10 games.

[Zak24gege]

Wheres this kind of tough love for McCaw? Don't think TD would throw a tough bounce pass to a cutting guy in traffic with the game on the line.. but i guess we'll never know

Davis had a very forgetful 2nd half. One thing that seems to be overlooked is Lowry had a terrible shooting night hitting 7/23 shots and only 25% of 3's (4/16). Given he was our primary scorer he had a tough night. Overall the team shot only 36% which makes it hard to WIN scoring 100 pts or less.

[bertarapsfan]

Davis had a very forgetful 2nd half. One thing that seems to be overlooked is Lowry had a terrible shooting night hitting 7/23 shots and only 25% of 3's (4/16). Given he was our primary scorer he had a tough night. Overall the team shot only 36% which makes it hard to WIN scoring 100 pts or less.

Ya davis didnt play well but i dont think he is the guy you should be picking on after this one.

[bertarapsfan]

Someone better step up for the next thread. I did the Nets game like an hour before tip since there wasn't a thread. Seems like lots of veteran thread starters are AWOL this season. Some of you newbies step up you never know you may have the lucky touch.

[Scraptor]

Someone better step up for the next thread. I did the Nets game like an hour before tip since there wasn't a thread. Seems like lots of veteran thread starters are AWOL this season. Some of you newbies step up you never know you may have the lucky touch.

I'll do the next one. I've just been super busy this year.

[slaw]

Basically had three guys making shots. Davis had a rough night but so did a lot of other guys. OG and RHJ weren’t good and McCaw was not nearly productive enough to warrant his minutes. Still, gave it away late with bad offense and Blazers made a lot of shots.

[KHD]

Gotta get OG back on track. Not too surprised he's struggling without Pascal and Marc in the lineup though. He's not able to initiate offence at this point.

[planetmars]

Yeah that sucked.. Raptors just slowly gave that one away. Got a little help from the refs too. Great defense early on. Had a comfortable lead through out. Portland tried to make it a game, but it was because our offensive sets stalled. Dumb turnovers didn't help (the McCaw "pass" to Lowry for example).
These types of games must be so irritating for coach's. They overall played as good as you could expect without all their guys healthy. Lowry was trying too hard and didn't have it like he had in previous games. Serge was really good.. just had his way with Whiteside. Boucher and O'Shea had good games.

TD's worse game of the year. Just didn't have it, and we could have used him. OG was pretty bad too, but hit some early 3's which was nice.

I love how RHJ won the jump ball against Whiteside though. We just f@cked up the offensive play when we had the ball.

Good to see Matt hitting some of his 3's after badly airballing the first one.

Ultimately this was a win, and it was taken away. Would be screaming at Nurse to swap McCaw with TD in crunch time, but TD was awful. So not sure what he could have done. Kyle needed ball handling help and Pat was the only guy available to do that.

Wish we had a better backup PG, but c'est la vie.

[golden]

Yeah that sucked.. Raptors just slowly gave that one away. Got a little help from the refs too. Great defense early on. Had a comfortable lead through out. Portland tried to make it a game, but it was because our offensive sets stalled. Dumb turnovers didn't help (the McCaw "pass" to Lowry for example).
These types of games must be so irritating for coach's. They overall played as good as you could expect without all their guys healthy. Lowry was trying too hard and didn't have it like he had in previous games. Serge was really good.. just had his way with Whiteside. Boucher and O'Shea had good games.

TD's worse game of the year. Just didn't have it, and we could have used him. OG was pretty bad too, but hit some early 3's which was nice.

I love how RHJ won the jump ball against Whiteside though. We just f@cked up the offensive play when we had the ball.

Good to see Matt hitting some of his 3's after badly airballing the first one.

Ultimately this was a win, and it was taken away. Would be screaming at Nurse to swap McCaw with TD in crunch time, but TD was awful. So not sure what he could have done. Kyle needed ball handling help and Pat was the only guy available to do that.

Wish we had a better backup PG, but c'est la vie.

Players say it all the time: when they have guaranteed minutes & role definition, they can get into a rhythm. With all the unconditional minutes and love he's getting, McCaw should be in a downright groove right now. That's why Nurse going off on TD, while having an infinite leash on McCaw is head-scratching. TD and RHJ have to come in there and basically perform at the high level immediately or else they get the hook and called out in the press. That leads to bench players forcing the issue and making bad plays, like we are seeing with TD2.

Really hope Nurse sees something that we aren't, or he could mess up Davis' confidence. Davis is worth developing... but Nurse is willing to let McCaw be the difference between winning and losing games?

[golden]

Gotta get OG back on track. Not too surprised he's struggling without Pascal and Marc in the lineup though. He's not able to initiate offence at this point.

Yeah, in our healthy starting lineup OG is surrounded by 4 play-makers (who can shoot 3s), so he can get open shots, wider driving lanes and easy back-cuts. Taking away Pascal has really exposed both OG and FVV. This was a golden opportunity for them to shine.

[golden]

I'll do the next one. I've just been super busy this year.

As long as you're rested for the playoffs.... we're good.

[RandomGuy]

I'll do the next one. I've just been super busy this year.

We're thread managing your load, no need.

[slaw]

Yeah, in our healthy starting lineup OG is surrounded by 4 play-makers (who can shoot 3s), so he can get open shots, wider driving lanes and easy back-cuts. Taking away Pascal has really exposed both OG and FVV. This was a golden opportunity for them to shine.

OG hasn't "been exposed" unless you were one of the 2 people who thought he was a guy who was going to initiate offense, create his own shot and become a playmaker. And FVV has been shining all year but your bias is too strong to see it. I dub it: VanVleet Derangement Syndrome.

[golden]

OG hasn't "been exposed" unless you were one of the 2 people who thought he was a guy who was going to initiate offense, create his own shot and become a playmaker. And FVV has been shining all year but your bias is too strong to see it. I dub it: VanVleet Derangement Syndrome.

Your bias against my bias is stronger, because you obviously haven't been paying attention.

My thoughts on OG's ceiling, going back to pre-season, was that if he could reach peak Otto Porter, i.e., an efficient 3 & D spot-up wing, then we should all be happy. People thought that was an insult, but it's pretty accurate. He was doing that earlier this year, but with tighter coverage since Pascal & Gasol went down, he's been sputtering. He's playing more like: after-he-got-paid Otto Porter.

And I kept saying that FVV seems to need Pascal or else his impact & efficiency drops off significantly and that's exactly what happened. And he's been wildly inconsistent.

Neither of those 2 predictions or observations were/are scandalous. They are what they are ..... the truth.

It's the other people who expected more, like: (a) OG will be in the running for MIP. (b) FVV is an all-star and will get a max offer in the off-season. If you want to call them deranged, so be it, but it's pretty obvious that my expectations were much closer to the truth.