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Too flawed. Sorry guys.

Likely a loss, but maybe I'm proven wrong. Dennis and Tim were absolutely horrid against the Clippers pressure defense against guards the last time.

With all our talk about the Portland players, most of us didn't even talk about the game. It's a bit late now but now I will. This was a nice, gut check win but jesus is this team flawed. Malcolm Delaney might have a couple nice attributes but he is not an NBA level athlete and since Mike Scott has had the worst year of his career, this team has no good backup bigs. The bench and Bazemore were really bad in this game. Delaney is so bad that when Sefolosha is ready to be back, I'd have Bazemore and Patterson share backup PG duties. Hardaway Jr has been quite good. He has changed since leaving New York, but it's in very subtle ways. Instead of just chucking up shots every time he gets the ball without help from anything, he will use a screen to free himself up and occasionally cut off the ball. While he's not good defensively, he tries and will hustle. The fast break is something he has always had in his game. As it turns out, most of the players in New York with the dysfunction of 14/15 just needed to leave New York...

Again, please tell me when Crawford averaged more than 45% shooting on volume shots. Your case is closed on this bad comp for McCollum. Maybe it's a career year in shooting % but it really doesn't look it if you're paying closer attention to him. It's sustainable.

I don't really know that there is a comp for McCollum. He's closer to being 6'3" than 6'4", so him and Lillard together is a horrible fit on defense. McCollum has shown well enough as a passer that I'd really consider trading Lillard if I were Portland. Lillard is the guard that is more known but his game as an attempt at a poor man's Curry just isn't all that fun.

I hope you realize you're most likely on an island all by your lonesome with your McCollum take on this forum, this is not new from ben, he was liking McCollum's intelligence and savviness on the offensive end in the playoffs last year and said he was better than Lillard. This take is absolutely awful btw, when has Crawford ever averaged close to 50% shooting on 18 shots?

McCollum is likely untouchable but Portland needs to trade one of him or Lillard. I'd honestly say Lillard but I bet if they trade anyone it's McCollum. It'd be too high of a price though.

Humphries has been pretty bad in his minutes lately, playing like how he played himself right back out of the rotation in late Nov/early Dec.

I keep coming back to Kent Bazemore's contract being a major issue and one that is so hampering it might be the main cause to a rebuild if you can't get salary relief from it. At least one or both of him and Dwight Howard need to go. While Howard has served a purpose (boards), he still doesn't want to accept that he is not what he was in his Magic days anymore. I don't buy that there is a "handshake" deal with Millsap that is good for him and the team. He is getting maxed if he stays. That won't be a bad thing if one big contract is gotten rid of. Most of this is offseason chatter imo... I'd like a backup PG upgrade and a good backup big this trade deadline. Maybe the latter is acquired.

I'm going to be brutally honest on Prince, I can see why he was considered a low first round talent, but it's not because of his tools. He has good tools, but outside of a better than what he's shown 3 point shot (in that he can be a 36-38% 3 point shooter), he has no skills at all. You can tell that the Baylor zone defense scheme is completely engrained in his muscle memory and in the half court he hasn't impressed me on offense. Any offensive move that has been successful by him was by his physicality/speed and not creativity. The latter thing wouldn't really be an issue, but that stupid zone scheme is and it's why a lot of Baylor players just don't really make it in the NBA. He might be the exception though.

At the risk of turning this into a mock draft thread, while you should pick players that fit your system in theory, you shouldn't just pick old college players. You should also consider younger players that you think could fit your system. I think I'd target a young big man in this year's draft (even if you plan on resigning Paul Millsap) or if he falls to ATL, Terrance Ferguson (he'd likely be a one season project for sure though before playing). There are a lot of good looking young big man prospects in the draft.

Tim Hardaway Jr has been good but skipping a draft is just not smart management. What also isn't smart management is picking Payne and Jenkins. I'd look to trade Bazemore and Howard if possible and try again with the halfway build with other players instead of going with one direction only but this really smells like the 2014 Braves in that a huge firesale is coming eventually (and one that was likely necessary no matter how mad you were at it, that was a mediocre team). But when you do that, you HAVE to play your young players instead of being very balky at it.

Bud did a pretty bad job of managing this game. Once Cousins went out with foul #5 and they really started to play a floor spacing game, the defense went into the trash can. I know that Paul/Tim/Dennis were working together well, but it doesn't mean put your emotion into it and leave them together for a lot of the quarter, then take them out not far away from each other for their rest. With Scott dead and Delaney disappointing with his scoring, the bench unit doesn't have enough scoring with Tim not on it (and despite this, he should continue starting). Refs refused to call the sixth foul on Cousins. Both Humphries and Muscala were absolutely awful.

The whole team expects more help defense than what is being provided this year. Its not one player, its the whole team.

I'll bite. Bazemore was never a good defender, he was just a pure hustle player. Dennis might be the worst off ball defender in the nba, he ball watches instead of watching his man which makes him lose a step, when he was trying to defend Murray in the last game he just fell down while trying to move off the ball defensively. His size also hurts him on the defensive end.

smdh, bad loss and TOTALLY preventable, it seems like the second west coast trip will be as bad as the first one was, unlike last season. A 1-2 swing is the best case scenario now imo. hardaway jr also got fouled.

Right now the way to play Dennis is relatively easy if you have good/motivated defenders, play back if he's not inside the three point line as he is not good enough off the dribble from three. Now his set shot is fine and should come back but off the dribble it's a surprise if he makes threes.

He'd still be doing about the same as he was when he was with the Hawks this year, his legs simply aren't there anymore, on a team where you HAVE to double team it's easier for him. He can shoot and not think about it.

After some thought, I think I've pinpointed the one main reason for the collapse. Unfortunately it has to do with an injury (Alex Mack's in fact). I've said this more with Georgia football but it applies here too. You can never be one dimensional on offense with either the run or pass. I complained about how Georgia refused to embrace their identity on offense as a zone running offense. However, just because you aren't able to be a good power run offense, it doesn't mean you can get away with not at least showing the power run. Unlike Georgia, the Falcons embraced this. They were a good zone run offense, but it didn't mean they didn't show the power run. At halftime NE realized that the Falcons were not going to at least show them the power run because of Mack's injury. The outside stretch zone runs were focused on in the second half and outside of maybe two plays the run game was closed down on. There were other plays, but not even being able to even show the power run just a few times to try to protect an injury is going to be discovered.

Unfortunately, bingo.

Just a BAD basketball team right now. No way to put it, the way they're playing they won't be beating any playoff caliber teams without acts of god like Hardaway Jr's 4th quarter. i can't post on my laptop right now so this is probably my last post today.

That game really comes down to being as simple as the Falcons aren't a good power run team and weren't the smarter team (EXACTLY like KC). Now I'm not saying its not a good running team, but it's a good running team out of zone run packages, and not the power run. It's really as simple as that, and this is not college and is the state of Georgia, I'm doubtful the Falcons will be back next year. Just like the Hawks with the 60 win season in 2015 (although I'd say the 11-5 equivalent is more like 52-55 wins in the NBA), next year will be the real test, you are not going to be sneaking up on anyone anymore. It's going to be a difficult schedule and the typical hangover will likely factor in too. Maybe that was the 2015 Cavaliers equivalent without injuries (the absolute tear the second half of the season would match what the Cavs did in the second half) or Clemson-Alabama part 1, but that's usually NEVER how it works in Georgia sports. I'm prepared to be disappointed big time again next year.

By the way, exactly what I said was correct. Stopping Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman was more necessary than stopping Julio Jones. Julio Jones had a monster catch that should have sealed the game, but it went for naught.

It's over for Georgia in sports. All over. Every team is going to tank after this and every coach on every team will be fired.

Forget the growth of the team, you've just reversed it completely after this game. There is no coming back from this at all.