I don't think there's a way to defend Harden for Blazers, but they did it early and in overtime. They didn't defend him that well IMO, they just attacked him all game long so that Harden didn't have much energy left on offense. I don't think there's a way to defend LMA or Lillard, but we could use the similar strategy to let TJ and Lin attack them. Early in second half TJ did nice job attacking LMA, but we didn't do it often enough. Lin attacked Lillard nicely down the stretch, but we need more of that right from the beginning.
pick and roll. You set their entire defense into frantic mode, getting mismatches. It's better than letting them set their defense. but this is too obvious so give it to harden and hope he shoots better.
Damian Lillard is terrible on the defensive end. What they should have done is either put the ball in Lin's hands and have him attack Lillard off the dribble/run him through picks/screens or force a Harden on Lillard switch from the start. On the defensive end, I didn't see nearly enough aggressive icing of the high picks. There's something wrong when Lillard is getting a high pick just past half court and NOBODY is shading on the pick and we expect Beverley or Lin to fight through a pick, turn the corner and regain position. As for LMA, LMA can't be stopped by any of our current PF's in single coverage. Asik does decently, but him getting into foul trouble took that out of the equation. What they should have done then is have the strong side defender aggressively shade towards LMA and Threaten to double team. You don't have to actually double team all the time to force the ball out of a player's hands. You can double team sometimes, and threaten to double team other times, as well as position the help defender closer to LMA so that the ball handler is reluctant to inbound the pass to LMA (indirect ball denial). Also, if you're going to double team LMA, you have to be fast to close, RESIST the temptation to reach in and simply crowd him, then be ready to run out to your man as soon as he's looking to pass. The lack of a solid defensive scheme against LMA (who the Coaching staff SAID they working on for TEN days!!!) is what I found the most alarming. The defensive plan for LMA was flawed from the start. That became 100% apparent as soon as I saw TJones defending LMA 1on1.
You attack Aldridge with Muscle. I would like to see Chuck Hayes personally. Or myself...I could take him
Well, You are not alone. Last night Haralabos Voulgaris tweeted a lot about how Blazer's coach made numerous correct calls, and blamed Mchale for his late game adjustments. Those are live tweets before knowing the final result...
I ain't scared neither....hahaha Actually, I think the OP makes a good point. Maybe we should attack LMA with Jones more.
Jones is going to keep getting abused...did you see when LMA was posting up and backing down on Jones and literally manhandles him...we need tree trunk legs
Dwight Howard should be making all those give me postups on LMA, he missed so many layups at the rim yesterday it was fustrating to watch.
I'm consistently amazed we don't run pick and roll, like, every single time when Harden and Dwight are on the floor together. Easy points.
lol I know right? Not utilizing Harden or Lin's best skill. Go figure. The Lin and Harden PNR worked well for a bunch of crucial possession in 4th. Mchale abandoned it though/
Start Lin, let him attack Lillard. Lillard will get his, but if Lin can make him work on the other end and get into foul trouble, then maybe we have our answer. We'll have to bring Bev off the bench in limited PT to not risk further injury anyways. If not, they should do a 1-2 pick and roll w/ Harden and the PG so Lillard gets switched onto Harden. There's definitely ways around it to make Lilliard and LMA work on D and even ways to effectively guard them or at least limit them or make the other Blazers score instead, but McHale has a lot of coaching ineptness. It is a long series, so hopefully adjustments will be made.
As torocan said, more 1-2 action to screen out Lillard and make his ass work. Lillard has weak D and you exploit the **** out of it. He is guarding Lin and obviously can't stay in front of him. I say give D-MO a chance to guard LMA and post him up and pop some corner 3's to take LMA away from the board.
I don't know if we would attack LMA or Lillard, but Portland is going to keep attacking Harden now that they know it's succesful. Actually we switched Parsons on Wesley after he attacked Harden successfully, and I expect we'd do similar thing next game. But from Blazer's perspective, they are going to let Batum attack Harden next game. Basically Harden has nowhere to hide in this series. Expect to see whoever he's guarding to force him playing defense going forward.
Have to find a way to put LMA in fouls trouble early in the game. I have the feeling that Lillard will not be nearly as effective without LMA being the focus of their offense.
Agreed, my only question (and I'm sure others as well), why didn't they milk the 1/2 PNR at the end of the game, I'm positive we would have gotten something good out of it
DMo needs to play. I'm sure LMA figured out how to best play Asik n preparation for this series. As good as Asik is defensively, he lacks athleticsm. All you have to do is get him moving and use his momentum against him. Dmo is a different look on both ends that LMA isn't as familiar with.
