Blazers' Robin Lopez after losing 2 games to Spurs

Another difference from Rudy T's era is the no-hand-checking rule we have now, which gives the attacking point guard a big advantage. The Blazers took advantage of the rule, and we didn't. We allowed Lillard to go off on offense, and we did absolutely nothing to make him work on defense. This is epically stupid coaching.

 

Were you a fan in the 90's?? Fans were griping about this same sh#t. Oh, why do our players just stand around and watching Hakeem? It's called spacing, and it works.

The illegal defense changes just makes it that much more important to have players who can hit an open shot at all the other positions. I'm looking at you, Terrence Jones and Omer Asik.

As far as Harden not beating his man one-on-one, I'm as baffled as anybody as to why he couldn't the first 5 games. IMO, any player making the max should be able to consistently make an opponent pay for single coverage. Harden did this ROUTINELY in the regular season - completely dependable. I know it didn't help that the PF never provided any spacing. Still, that's also why we have 2 Max players. If one has a bad matchup, the other one should be able to carry the load.

Anyway, I know I saw somebody post that our offense was the second most efficient in the playoffs, so it was effective even with Harden in a slump. So, quit b*tching because we don't run the Spurs offense. I am swearing to you on my integrity that I heard ppl shouting the same things about Hakeem and Rudy's Rockets - but it worked good enough to get us a couple championships.

Now, I agree that McHale isn't the best coach. And I also wholeheartedly agree that Harden needs to get his act together on conditioning and defense. I don't even disagree that we should have used Harden & Dwight on the pick and roll like we did in that one game. But I'm not just going to start panicking and jumping on the bandwagon to just copycat the Spurs offense, because that's what is en vogue at the moment.

 

So, is that what changing the illegal D rules did? It allows stars to be double-teamed before they get the ball? And you see this happen a lot, do you?