The Top 5 Reasons Lillard and the Blazers Handled Us Easily

1. Experience discrepancy

Rockets starters had 10 years of combined NBA experience. Blazers starters had 33 years of combined NBA experience. The Rox starters' average age was 21.8, Blazers' starters was 27.2. That's a sh!te-ton of know-how that created an unfair advantage. The Blazers are mediocre against experienced teams, but ate us alive.​

2. Horrendous perimeter defense/horrendous perimeter scoring

We lost the last two games by a total of 32 points, despite being plus-64 in the paint (124-60). We shot 26.9 from 3, and the Blazers shot 51.3 on nearly 40 shots. They couldn't have shot much better on an empty court.​

3. Stephen Silas

No explanation necessary.​

4. Home court advantage

It's a real thing most of the time, and even more so with a team full of NBA newbies like ours. We have the league's worst road record. I was there last night at the Moda Center, and when Dame went off in the 2nd quarter, the crowd went nuts and never really got quiet again.​

5. Last, but certainly not least: WE ARE TANKING.

If the front office sees no advantage at all to winning games right now, that attitude will seep down to the coaching staff, then the players. It's one thing for the coach to say we're trying to win games, but for f**k's sake, the GM only made trade deadline moves that left the league's worst team even worse in the short term. Silas may be a bad coach, but with better players, even he could eke out a few more wins. With what Stone has given him to work with, and counting the injuries to our starting guards, that's almost impossible.
​

Bottom line: It is what it is. Pray for Victor.

 

Quibble accepted.