What's new
By:
Filters

Game Thread Mar 22, 2023 07:00PM MT: Jazz vs. Trail Blazers

Added to Calendar: 03-22-23

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you neutralize Kessler at this point of his career. He has to get better at some things.

The Blazers had an excellent game plan. They dragged Walker out of the hole with a shooting big (Nurk) and involved him in all kinds of actions up top. When they had him scrambling and trying to retain position, they dropped the ball into the high post and let Nurkic hit athletic wings in the corners with his tap passes. With lead-footed help defenders like Olynyk out there, the Jazz never had a chance to contain that. The court was wide open and there was often a direct line to the basket. Portland got tons of open 3's and easy drives off that basic plan.

As I said some time ago, centers who can shoot are Kessler's achilles heel right now. He's kinda quick for his size, but you can't fool physics - he IS a massive guy and when he has to close people out hard, the momentum often carries him right out of the play. He has to find the right balance between keeping an eye on his guy, floating somewhere away from the basket, and not over-committing to these decoy plays at the perimeter.

It's OK to love Kessler (I do) and still think that there's a few really big holes in his game that need to be fixed if he intends to be a career starter in this league. As Boler and Thurl said, the Blazers figured him out, and next season that's gonna be happening more and more unless he comes into training camp armed with some new weapons.
 
Exactly why hardy should have played kessler more last night. Kessler has weaknesses he needs to work on. This is literally the perfect year to let him work on those things in game.
Blazers figured out how to get kessler put of the game.

Well if its that easy to force kessler out of the game and hardy has no plan to counter it then might as well trade kessler now.

Is this how its going to be going forward? Teams decide to pull kessler out of the paint and either hardy benches him or we get terrance manned? Not encouraging
 
@Elizah Huge can you look up how many minutes the closing lineup from last night have played together this season total prior to last night?
 
Exactly the reason why we should aim for high draft pick. Teams are beginning to figure us out and come playoff time we will get massacred. We don't have enough firepower after lauri it's jc then Sexton. And our bench toscano, juzang, gay, dunn , dok, Brantley ? Good Lord we will end up over playing lauri until his arms and legs fall off.
 
Tremendous Upside said:
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you neutralize Kessler at this point of his career. He has to get better at some things.

The Blazers had an excellent game plan. They dragged Walker out of the hole with a shooting big (Nurk) and involved him in all kinds of actions up top. When they had him scrambling and trying to retain position, they dropped the ball into the high post and let Nurkic hit athletic wings in the corners with his tap passes. With lead-footed help defenders like Olynyk out there, the Jazz never had a chance to contain that. The court was wide open and there was often a direct line to the basket. Portland got tons of open 3's and easy drives off that basic plan.

As I said some time ago, centers who can shoot are Kessler's achilles heel right now. He's kinda quick for his size, but you can't fool physics - he IS a massive guy and when he has to close people out hard, the momentum often carries him right out of the play. He has to find the right balance between keeping an eye on his guy, floating somewhere away from the basket, and not over-committing to these decoy plays at the perimeter.

It's OK to love Kessler (I do) and still think that there's a few really big holes in his game that need to be fixed if he intends to be a career starter in this league. As Boler and Thurl said, the Blazers figured him out, and next season that's gonna be happening more and more unless he comes into training camp armed with some new weapons.
Click to expand...
Eh, Kessler is a rookie playing way beyond his draft position. He is going to have rough games, but he has given us spectacular plays and great games in equal measure. He will figure things out, we have already seen him learning and applying what he is getting from the coaches. He will be that much better next year and by his third year he will be an absolute force. This was a good learning game for him. His future, and therefore our future, is nothing but bright.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top