But why did McHale go away from TT in the end? We went extreme small ball with Harden playing the 4. We ended up winning, so did that work? Or did it almost cost us?
Because Portland went small. Asik doesn't have enough offensive skills to make his smaller opponent pay and playing him and Howard together means one of them would be guarding Batum, Matthews, Williams or Lillard. In this series, when one team goes small, the other team basically has to play small as well.
Portland has never been a good matchup for Tjones. We should if started TT from Game 1 but it is what It is.
I still say DMo should get some minutes. TJones has been ineffective (except for game 1) and simply is not long enough to guard Aldridge.
DMo is lengthier and has a bigger body and better chance to bother LMA than Jones. This is not the series for him. The Spurs on the other hand, is a series where Jones' superior athleticism can wreck shop/
Just because you want the Twin Towers, why does it have to go at the expense of Jones? For everybody saying Jones was thrash: bull! He had some great moments in games 1 and 2, he rebounded, took the ball to the hole strong and blocked some shots. Just because he is not capable of defending LMA straight up, seriously who was or is at this point, does not mean he sucked. I think in the long run, it can actually hurt but we will see.
Not completely, on defense probably, but he did average 12.5 points and 10.5 boards with 1.5 steals and 1 block on like 52-54% in the first two games.
Just means that Portland is setting the tone of the game down the stretch. Mchale needs to find ways to finish strong with his starting lineup.
Not true. We thrived with small-ball last season and we were ok with it this season. We really want to play small ball. The problem with our small ball lineup is our shooters have abandoned us. We miss Carlos Delfino immensely. And our shooters just have not been as good this season. Chandler Parsons in particular last night....absolutely terrible. Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a handful of chicken feed. When you look at the small ball matchups defensively, Harden on Batum, Lin on Mo Williams, Bev on Lillard, and Daniels on Wes Matthews...that should be decent matchups for us. Offensively, Harden has to eventually solve Matthews. He did better last night but Matthews is doing a great job of individual defense on him. I was surprised at how many minutes Daniels got last night. I really thought he'd get around 10 and then when Parsons got into foul trouble I expected to see Garcia. But McHale went with Daniels and it somewhat worked out although Daniels does hurt us defensively with his lack of size and experience. I know this. I didn't feel comfortable watching our small ball lineup out there. We've still got to make some adjustments there. But the TT's lineup going against Lopez/Lamarcus was +13 for the game.
against Blazer, definitely. Jones just is a bad matchup against them. And he's a better matchup against their bench. Also, love the hard hedge on the PnR by either Howard or Asik.... that was big in slowing them down as well. You can afford to do that with the other big man in the paint for protection. Portland is going to adjust in game 4... our coaches need to think of their adjustments ahead of time and plan for it.
