Debunking the Myth (Aldridge dropped 40 on Jones!)

Smith is a rental. East enough.

 

If Jones guarded Aldridge for the full game, Aldridge would have dropped 60.

 

And we'd have been swept in 4.

 

No fiery arrows in my quiver. I, for one, appreciate your analysis...and must say it matches what I remember seeing. Jones caught all the blame from posters...but Asik really didn't do the job at all in game 2. I wasn't as surprised that a 22 year old developing player got outplayed by one of the top players in the NBA, as I was at Asik's inability to even slow LMA down.

That told me (and I suspect DM and the rest of management) that Asik needed to go for the most we could get for him...and we needed to concentrate harder on Jones development as well as DMo.

I hope we get another shot at Portland this time around. I believe our team will be ready.

 

I don't blame Jones for our failure against Portland. I blame McHale for being too slow and too stubborn to make a change earlier in the regular season and work out the kinks before the playoffs. Jones was fools' gold going up against Portland's giants and some of us could see it coming weeks before the playoffs started.

 

Let's be real we blew a double digit lead in the 4th quarter of 3 of the 4 games we lost to Portland. Not being able to stop Aldridge had nothing to do with that, because Aldridge was going off when we had those double digit leads. The problem was not being able to answer their late drives on offense, it would have put more pressure on them.

 

Jones got murdered by Aldridge. NUFF SAID

 

Everyone did, not just Jones. Harden's lack of any offense or defense is the main reason we lost that series. But you guys keep blaming everything on Jones.

 

Asik played LaMarcus well and while LaMarcus did score points Asik watered down his efficiency and turned him over enough to neutralize him.

If you will do an analysis of LaMarcus possessions results when the 3 defenders were defending him you will discover that Asik and Dwight were far superior defenders on him than Terrence. There's more to evaluating a defender's success or failure than how many points are scored. There's more to evaluating a scorer's success or failure than how many points he scored.

 

When you are being guarded by the basketball equilvent of a lollipop man often good players will get hot and it'll take a while to cool them off. Once the Rockets made the switch to Jones never playing on LMA, he cooled off fairly quickly. I know Jones fans are hyped up by his good game last night, but let's not try to re-write history. The decision to play Jones on LMA early in the series likely cost us the series. It certainly gave the Blazers a lift.

 

Jones blows more layups than asik did in his 2 years in houston. Open easy layups that is

 

LOL. You'd have to show me the numbers on that one there. Asik can't even catch the basketball enough times to blow the layups that Jones blows.

 

Josh smith can defend the four spot better then jones can. Jones is more of a tweener then smith. Jones should try and become a SF devolp his dribble and shot more.

 

In other words. Tjones was a bad match up against the Portland bigs last playoff. He is now playing better defense, however he is still a poor matchup to Portland.

 

Dunno. Worrell is touting Jones' improved strength and increased bench press numbers. He looks stronger to me. However I still doubt he's big enough to be effective against Portland's or LAC's or SAS's or Memphis' bigs. Just don't think he's long enough and strong enough.

Personally, I'm hoping Dwight is well enough to give us 30 and can get close to 30 out of DMo and JSMoove. That should cover us at the big spots for the playoffs. And we won't have to give Jones' big minutes. Personally, I think if Jones gets big playoff minutes...we are going to lose.

 

LMA was scoring of Ibaka last night. The truth is, there's nothing a single defender can do when he or Nowitzki are hitting those fall away jumpers from behind their head like that.

 

True... but TJones is the guy who SHOULD be covering LMA... The fact that you had to have someone else play out of position, because your pf was getting annihilated by their pf, and they didn't fair any better, doesn't mean boo... If you are gonna be the starting pf on a championship squad, you gotta be able to fill the role. - and that includes your proper matchup.... Is Jones the guy? Had a few nice games recently, let's hope the trend continues.

 

LaMarcus is pretty underrated and had a monster series. Lillard seemed to get all of the praise last year but LMA was Portland's best player in that series.

 

No matter how you slice it, Jones got murdered by POR, and we had to bench him in the last four games. He went from 30 mpg, to under 20.

 

Maybe that's what this extra muscle is for.