Game 2: Phoenix Suns (1-0) @ Los Angeles Lakers (0-1) l Thursday l 7:00pm l TNT

[NapoleonII]

What’s the deal with Beal? He get hurt in practice? Sorry been overseas for a while.

Btw Aytons value would go up if he’s only playing with 1 star, but be significantly diminished if playing with all 3, offensively at least.

Only been two games, but he's been doing a pretty good job of diminishing his value with ZERO stars in Portland.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Ayton doubled his score from last game.

Utah won by 2 and their best players played about 35 minutes B2B with us tomorrow.

[garrick]

Ayton doubled his score from last game.

Utah won by 2 and their best players played about 35 minutes B2B with us tomorrow.

I'm watching the game now.

It's all about Scoot and Grant jacking up shots & the offense & defensive schemes are both abysmal. Camara looks good although the stat box doesn't show it & he missed some easy buckets but could just be nerves.

[NapoleonII]

Ayton doubled his score from last game.

Utah won by 2 and their best players played about 35 minutes B2B with us tomorrow.

I'm watching the game now.

It's all about Scoot and Grant jacking up shots & the offense & defensive schemes are both abysmal.

Yup.

Chauncy has no idea what he's doing.

A wet paper bag could outcoach him.

[garrick]

Ayton doubled his score from last game.

Utah won by 2 and their best players played about 35 minutes B2B with us tomorrow.

I'm watching the game now.

It's all about Scoot and Grant jacking up shots & the offense & defensive schemes are both abysmal.

Yup.

Chauncy has no idea what he's doing.

A wet paper bag could outcoach him.

A better game from Ayton with 14 points & 15 rebounds with pretty much no plays being run up for him. I would say he played pretty much the same as he played here, some lapses on defense as usual for him.

Blazers aren't even trying to involve him on offense since the offensive strategy seems to be to just let Scoot, Sharpe & Grant jack up shots all game long.

[bwgood77]

I am just having a hard time enjoying watching this team as the ones of the past few years (at least prior to last year's injury marred team.

I thought I wouldn't enjoy this year's team as much as prior years, but I find I'm pretty glued so far. The energy is great. Hard to compete with a 64 win team from an entertainment perspective. The year before that was kind of a letdown before the bubble, with DA sitting the first 25.

The 64 win team was the year after we went to the finals. Then we rested at the end and went into the playoffs flat...Cam was also injured near the end...then Book got injured in the Pels series and Paul and Ayton had to step up. Then the Dallas series happen and Paul suddenly became a different player on his birthday or whatever.

I can't remember how many we won the year we made the finals, but Utah was the 1 seed and they lost to the Clips in the semi finals even after Kawhi went down, so we played 4 or 5 seed in the WCF with no Kawhi, after playing Denver with no Murray and the Lakers with AD leaving. Though Paul also had Covid for a couple games in one series and couldn't use his arm in a couple games against the Lakers.

This team is all just so new. I really like Beal though so I think I will enjoy more when he plays. But I did love when we had the young up and coming team that went to the finals and knew we had years with that team and all our picks...of course loved Bridges.

Now we are an old team with a short window and limited picks so the pressure is up...and fans have little patience which can make things toxic, blame thrown everywhere....what made those seasons fun despite how they ended was that we were young and exceeding expectations by a ton..I wasn't as upset with the playoff losses because I thought the finals run was ahead of schedule and even the 64 win season. Last year of course we were too banged up to have a good record.

Anyway, it's obviously nice to have a great team...I'm really glad we were able to add Beal because that trade gave us that extra big piece we really needed. Hopefully he isn't a letdown. That was unexpected and if we still had Paul or cut him and just had this team with no Beal, I would feel we had an ok chance and a short window. I know people thought we were still the favorite before the Beal trade but I got a lot more confident after that. And the Nurkic trade helps too if for no other reason to get rid of the negative cloud over the team, even if from the fanbase being toxic on social media, etc, but his passing and screening is welcome. Hopefully he stays engaged and limits the turnovers and finishes a little better.

[sunsbum]

I'm watching the game now.

It's all about Scoot and Grant jacking up shots & the offense & defensive schemes are both abysmal.

Yup.

Chauncy has no idea what he's doing.

A wet paper bag could outcoach him.

A better game from Ayton with 14 points & 15 rebounds with pretty much no plays being run up for him. I would say he played pretty much the same as he played here, some lapses on defense as usual for him.

Blazers aren't even trying to involve him on offense since the offensive strategy seems to be to just let Scoot, Sharpe & Grant jack up shots all game long.

You cant run plays for Ayton but you already know that.

[bwgood77]

I'm watching the game now.

It's all about Scoot and Grant jacking up shots & the offense & defensive schemes are both abysmal.

Yup.

Chauncy has no idea what he's doing.

A wet paper bag could outcoach him.

A better game from Ayton with 14 points & 15 rebounds with pretty much no plays being run up for him. I would say he played pretty much the same as he played here, some lapses on defense as usual for him.

Blazers aren't even trying to involve him on offense since the offensive strategy seems to be to just let Scoot, Sharpe & Grant jack up shots all game long.

Yeah, over 77% from the field and gets 9 shots. I guess better than 4. I didn't watch tonight but saw bits and pieces of their first game and their offense had no flow, and the lane was really clogged. No floor spreading. Scoot was just driving and getting blocked. But without the floor being spread the paint was full of defenders.

[garrick]

Yup.

Chauncy has no idea what he's doing.

A wet paper bag could outcoach him.

A better game from Ayton with 14 points & 15 rebounds with pretty much no plays being run up for him. I would say he played pretty much the same as he played here, some lapses on defense as usual for him.

Blazers aren't even trying to involve him on offense since the offensive strategy seems to be to just let Scoot, Sharpe & Grant jack up shots all game long.

Yeah, over 77% from the field and gets 9 shots. I guess better than 4. I didn't watch tonight but saw bits and pieces of their first game and their offense had no flow, and the lane was really clogged. No floor spreading. Scoot was just driving and getting blocked. But without the floor being spread the paint was full of defenders.

Yeah that team has no identity it's pretty much the Grant and Scoot Henderson show now.

If the Blazers think Scoot is the future I think they need to surround him with more vets and have some better structure, a better coach wouldn't hurt either.

[bwgood77]

A better game from Ayton with 14 points & 15 rebounds with pretty much no plays being run up for him. I would say he played pretty much the same as he played here, some lapses on defense as usual for him.

Blazers aren't even trying to involve him on offense since the offensive strategy seems to be to just let Scoot, Sharpe & Grant jack up shots all game long.

Yeah, over 77% from the field and gets 9 shots. I guess better than 4. I didn't watch tonight but saw bits and pieces of their first game and their offense had no flow, and the lane was really clogged. No floor spreading. Scoot was just driving and getting blocked. But without the floor being spread the paint was full of defenders.

Yeah that team has no identity it's pretty much the Grant and Scoot Henderson show now.

If the Blazers think Scoot is the future I think they need to surround him with more vets and have some better structure, a better coach wouldn't hurt either.

Seems like Blazers fans really want a coach. Thinks they look disorganized on both sides of the ball. They need a PJ Tucker type..a Bridges type. They have too many shoot first guys. None of them are efficient either. They do have Thybulle, so they have 1 but it feels they need something more.

But they have ZERO ball movement. There starting guards had 4 total assists. Grant had the most in the starting lineup with 3. Camara tied him for most on the team with 3. I guess Simons is out. Not sure if that will help or not. He wants shots too. Sharpe was the guy who took 23 tonight. It wasn't even Grant or Scoot. Though they were a combined 7 for 26.

Oh, I guess Ant is out for 4-6 weeks...got injured in the first game. So basically their best guard is out...and they have a rookie and a 2nd year player starting at the guard spots now along with Grant at PF who is a shoot first guy. They really should start Brogdon. They need the younger guys to get playing time and better but they probably need a vet to show them the ropes and help them do that.

[DirtyDez]

Read on Twitter

Back spams tend to linger. I’d shut him down for a while in case a setback turns him into damaged goods.

[sunsfan1o1]

Who's gives a F? That's like saying 70's basketball was great because the average NBA player back then had to grind even harder as their salary were good but not exorbitant like 90's NBA players

Bro. What r u talking about. You sound ignorant.
Your favorite player is soft. It’s ok. The whole league is soft.
Nobody talking about the 70s bro.

Ain't nobody talking about 90's either mate

I am smart guy. Lol. Get it together mate

[Hitachi77]

What’s the deal with Beal? He get hurt in practice? Sorry been overseas for a while.

Btw Aytons value would go up if he’s only playing with 1 star, but be significantly diminished if playing with all 3, offensively at least.

Only been two games, but he's been doing a pretty good job of diminishing his value with ZERO stars in Portland.

Yeah. Trade looking pretty good now. Even with Nurk issues.

[lilfishi22]

Bro. What r u talking about. You sound ignorant.
Your favorite player is soft. It’s ok. The whole league is soft.
Nobody talking about the 70s bro.

Ain't nobody talking about 90's either mate

I am smart guy. Lol. Get it together mate

Ironic since the people who tell others how smart they are tend to be the dumbest in the room

[sunsfan1o1]

Ain't nobody talking about 90's either mate

I am smart guy. Lol. Get it together mate

Ironic since the people who tell others how smart they are tend to be the dumbest in the room

Unfortunately that doesn’t apply here. Keep trying.

[AtheJ415]

I blame Vogel. He tried never before seen lineups in the 4th which is why we had a whopping 9 points with an NBA roster in a full quarter. That is a level of offensive inefficiency that I am not sure I have ever seen in 30 years of watching NBA basketball. He panicked and went to an all defensive small lineup with non shooters around Durant aside from Allen, which led to Durant getting triple teamed and compounded on that gaff by not running any action off ball to force the defense to do much of anything. We just chucked the ball to KD and had 1 off ball wing player crash the glass. We had turnover after turnover. The advantage of that smaller lineup should have been speed but we slowed the ball down instead of pushing tempo which allowed us to get smothered.

On the other end due to the lack of size we got obliterated and then we "fixed" that by subbing in our worst player of the night in Nurkic who allowed layup after layup after layup while not getting offensive rebounds and running into passes creating more turnovers.

If we had gone small with shooting around a player we KNOW will get doubled that would make sense for an offense struggling to score. Going small with cutters attacking a guy like AD is just way too easy to guard if the offense is going to be to give KD the ball and not run actual offense.

KD should have been out there about 2 minutes into the 4th. We waited way too long which allowed LA to completely eliminate our large advantage and we then went entirely away from the lineup that actually worked for 3 quarters. Also, if we are defaulting to defense and going big, it should have been Eubanks out there.

I don't understand the complete no show for Metu given the matchup. Same for Bates Diop, who offers length and shooting. Despite being bad in the preseason he's one of our best bench options.

It's early but I am very, very concerned with Vogel at this point. He cannot panic into an all defensive lineup that is small against a team whose 2 best offensive players are big. You cannot just remove the most impotant items in the game (shooting and size) in exchange for hustle.

The athleticism of Metu would've been a much better matchup than Nurkic given how bad Nurkic was on offense. Eubanks fouls too much, but at least he moves. If Nurkic is not performing on offense he is completely unplayable. We have to have a quicker trigger on him. We have to have Metu and Eubanks ready to go when he sucks, because this will happen in about half the games this season.

I would have used Allen more in actions and played Metu.

I voiced my displeasure with Vogel's coaching all game long. When momentum was shifting he sat on his timeouts too long and he didn't go deep enough into the bench. That small ball crap at that end had me completely incensed.

And he did it AGAIN