Damian Lillard's Portland Trail Blazers were knocked out of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs by the Denver Nuggets, who inflicted a 4-2 series loss on Terry Stotts' men.
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The Trail Blazers will enter the 2021-22 season with a new head coach for the first time since Terry Stotts’ opening campaign in 2012-13. Under Stotts, with a roster constructed by President of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey, the Blazers have struggled to put forth a competent defense. With that in mind, Portland’s next head coach could feature a defense-first approach in order to counter those issues.
According to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, that approach might not yield immediate improvements. On Friday, Pelton explained that countering an output imbalance with a coaching hire doesn’t always lead to the desired outcome.
8 Wacky Predictions About the Trail Blazers’ Future
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We are just ahead of Game 6 between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Denver Nuggets in their best-of-seven playoffs series. The game tips at 5:00 PM, Pacific tonight on TNT. With the Blazers down 2-3, plenty of people are writing in and asking what adjustments they can make to stave off elimination.
We did adjustment/analysis posts before the first five games of this series, but honestly speaking, the late games of any series are more about energy, effort, and will executing the established game plan than technical changes. The Blazers played the way they wanted to play for most of Games 3, 4, and 5. They had lulls in certain quarters, but their approach was basically sound. They adjusted and fine-tuned through the earliest games in this series. Now they just have to go out and do it.