And by more than “well, 126 points allowed is better than 128 points allowed, right?” margins. I just spent an hour or so re-watching every Blazers basket, and rather than being depressed about the state of the defense, I think it’s closer than it seemed on first glance.
First of all, the Jazz did a relatively good job of forcing the Blazers into the kinds of shots they want them to take.Here is the Blazers’ shot distribution tonight, per Cleaning The Glass:
Forcing the Blazers to only take 16 shots at the rim is good. Forcing them to only take 27 shots from deep is also good, they averaged 31 per game last season.