Chalk up another loss to terrible defense. For the key stretch of the fourth, the Blazers scored on 9 of 10 possessions. Those 10 possession went like this:
- layup and a foul
- short jumper in the middle of the lane
- layup and a foul (missed free throw)
- 8' jump hook that was a tough shot
- a shot blocked by George Hill
- layup and a foul (missed free throw)
- contested made baseline jumper
- wide open layup
- wide open 3-pointer
- contest made jumper after an offensive rebound
You can't win games with defense like that. Especially, if that is the defense you play against a talent challenged team like these injured Blazers. I believe we are in deep trouble.
The team was terrible on defense. Just terrible. Even the 15 third quarter points was a bit misleading. The Blazers only had 19 possessions in the quarter and turned it over 5 times. We gave up 5 offensive rebounds and benefited from the Blazers missing 4-5 open shots. Yes, we did play hard in that quarter, but the pace was VERY slow.
Every other quarter was awful.
First quarter: 26 points on 22 possessions. Blazers scored on 10 of their last 12 possessions. 5 of those scores were uncontested layups. Only 1 make was on a contested jumper. Of the two stops, one was a missed wide open 3 by Fernandez and the other was a semi-contested 8-footer by Miller. 12 possessions and maybe 2 would qualify as decent defense.
Second quarter: 25 points on 21 possessions. Blazers score on 11 of their first 16 possessions. Of the 5 stops, 3 were turnovers, 2 of which were unforced ( a travel by Batum and a bad alley oop pass by Blake). The other two stops were a missed wide open jumper by Batum and a missed contested jumper by Aldridge followed by a missed wide open jumper by Cunningham. Of the 4 stops in the last 5 possessions in the quarter, two were missed wide open jumpers. I'd say we played 3 good defensive possessions in the quarter. Maybe.
To illustrate how much we got torn up by the Blazers offense, they had 30 assists on 39 field goals.
For my note-taking purposes, I consider a shot challenged if a guy has his hand up and is within a foot or so of the shooter. We challenged a fair number of Aldridge's shots. McDyess was pretty good on him. I consider a wide open shot a shot where the defender has no effect on the shooter's view of the rim. If there is even a defender in the area.
It should be pointed out that Matt Bonner only played 4:42 and was a +5. He was not solely responsible for our horrific defense. Oh, and did I mentioned that we got hammered on the glass 45-36 after jumping out to an early 9-2 advantage.
We get no stars. None. This was a horribly depressing game.