[Highlight] Toumani Camara puts Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a box and the Blazers force a 24-second violation on the Thunder, late in the 4th quarter.
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Camara is the perfect 3&D guy that every team covets.
lol and the suns just gave him to us
Its becoming more and more apparent that the key to building a good NBA team is to screw over the Kings/Suns/Bucks/Wizards/Clippers in a trade.
Don’t forget the Blazers got the FRP that became Damian Lillard by trading past his prime Gerald Wallace to the Nets, the same Nets who traded for past their primes Celtics and gave up what became Jaylen Brown AND Jayson Tatum. So the Nets most certainly deserve an honorable mention.
I’d like to submit a formal request that you swap the Wizards for the Mavs at this moment. We did get AD from them…who got him for Luka
We got Deni for a 2029 pick swap and Brogdon.
It is criminal that you excluded NOP from this
Not even the dumbest thing we’ve done in the past few years, believe it or not
still can’t fathom the miles bridges trade man
Toumani had that boy in hell all game. Genuinely impressive to be able to contain one of the best scorers in the league that well
two games in a row
Ik Shai won’t ever be a volume 3pt shooter and ik he works on them in the off season but is the one aspect of his game to me that is missing. Like didn’t he go 0-7? Like compare in the playoffs espicially the fact teams can just sag off him it’s just a flaw in his that I wonder if it’ll ever really improve.
Teams don’t really sag off of him, especially with the current lineups. Feels like he’s only had like 2 open looks at 3 all year. He’s having to generate these attempts off of step backs mostly and it’s been inconsistent bc it’s just not always a great shot. But someone has to shoot.
Before these Portland games he was shooting 39% on nearly 7 attempts per game, but he wasn’t generating any good looks due to the Blazers defense and nobody else was hitting anything either so the Blazers never had to adjust their scheme. I don’t expect him to look that bad from 3 very often. Most teams don’t have a Toumani Camara to throw at him
Statistically do you know if he’s better off the dribble on threes or off the catch bc I always thought that the way Shai shots it send like 3’s off the dribble for him are just more difficult bc he’s seems to get more lift on his midrange shots than his 3’s.
Not off the top of my head, no. I know he shoots way more off the dribble tho.
OKC just doesn’t have anyone else who can demand enough attention to get Shai open for catch and shoot looks very often
how many times are we gonna let the shot clock go down to 8 seconds and throw some bullshit up.
Thunder just don’t have the play makers they usually do
They are down 3 starters for the basically the entire season, and lost another starter in the previous game.
Out 5 of our 8 best players last night.
That doesn’t make it sound as bad as it is.
3 starters, 2 max players and the betting favorite for 6MOTY.
If you took 3 starters off any team, (they don’t even have to be max players, just any 3 starters) that team would be so much worse.
Let alone losing their best bench player as well.
Blazers have a really nice team overall.
Guards - Dame, Morant, Jrue, Scoot, and Youngblood. Shaedon is injured.
Wings - Deni, Toumani and Cissoko. Krejci (injured now)
Forwards and Centers - Clingan, Williams, Carlson, Potter, and Yang.
When they possibly get Shaedon back in March, he’s gonna be a nice boost off the bench especially when the old guys start showing fatigue.
Nori’s been generally limiting all the guards to sub-30 minutes per game. Probably more than just the guards, actually. Should reduce some of the fatigue towards the end of the season.
This is the weakness with the Blazers at the moment. Williams is the only athletic big who can guard someone like Wemby. Gonna be a huge problem for the Blazers to solve via trade, I would guess.
Put some respect on Cling Kong’s name man, he’s looking like a top 10 C in the league right now. And only 22 years old.
If you want to address what I actually said, the actual weaknesses to his game, I’m game to have a conversation. I can’t do anything with this, though, this is Stephen A Smith levels of pointless talking head garbage. No offense intended. He looked terrible against the Spurs in the playoffs last year, he looked terrible against the Spurs 3 games ago, he looked horrible getting cooked up into a stew against Memphis. Clingan is great. When we face an athletic big, the team struggles because Clingan struggles.
Blazers are much better off putting Clingan on a non shooter and cheating off them to lurk in the paint, their pseudo-zone look they use to keep Clingan defending the interior- better to force the ancillary role players to beat you by bombing from three.
Clingan is elite not because of his ability to defend any given single matchup or player, but because of his ability to depress the quantity and quality of shots at the rim specifically for the entire opposition. That and how he crushes the glass to win the possession battle are by far his greatest strengths and value adds (Now, he struggles super hard in the Spurs matchup, but they are by far our worst matchup in the league and have embarrassed the Blazers repeatedly in the Deni era.)
Last playoffs the team had the most success putting Jrue on Wemby, which worked because Jrue, despite the entire foot disparity in height, is so smart, savvy, and strong, he knew how to make Wemby uncomfortable, bother him, and get into his base and deny him the ability to go wherever he wants on the floor, he was fighting Jrue for every step.
Your last two sentences of your previous comment were true (as is the end of this one).He was reacting to first half of the comment where you said the center group is a weakness. The Clingan and Williams duo is way better than league average. True, though, that Clingan isn’t great on Wemby. That is why we put Camara on him.
Kinda crazy how Luka just casually scores 40 to 50 pts on Camara, Jrue, and Cissoko.
Luka can shoot the 3, SGA cannot. 0-11 from three against the blazers two games
Also Luka is bigger/stronger than SGA.
Luka big boy
He large
Shai can def shoot them 3s lol, be he can’t create as much separation as Luka does with his step back.
Tou maybe having his best def season yet but ya both games Luka just drilled contested 3 after contested 3. What you gonna do other than make him work for them.
Maybe Shai should play some Overwatch
Dude, right? That guy is fucking insane.
Edit: just to add Luka has been torching the Blazers for years now and this one lives in my head. https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/pCJ9fhHAH9
Jfc I didn’t need to see that again.
Scottie Barnes, Dyson Daniels, Collin Murray Boyles, Camara, etc. Luka’s been hooping against all of these great defenders but nba socials said he was ducking playing against Ausar lmao.
You can get Toumani on sudden stops and pump fakes. Luka is elite at that.
Blazers just fell apart in the 2nd half of that Lakers game and it carried forward into the game against the Spurs. Back-to-Backs against two good teams are tough.
The game they won it was the most he shot all season and 33% from 3 which is his 3rd worst performance this year. Got saved by having 18 free throws as well that game, lots of ticky-tacky calls that could have not been called at all. Literally couldn’t touch him that game or it was a whistle. But ya guy is balling out and the current MVP.
It’s only crazy to the people that think he is not the MVP
It’s been 12 games.
Camara played really damn good defense these last 2 games. Dudes a real one.
This is poetry.
What an absolute grenade of a pass from SGA there. McCain had no chance of getting that off. Even if he moves slightly quicker into a better passing lane the pass is so low he’s never getting back into position to get that shot off
If you’re talking about when Sidy ran into him then you’re a goofball. Shai sold that contact so hard lmao
That was certainly a foul why downplay it? He got knocked to the ground he did not flop to the ground I’ve watched both angles it deserved to be call I don’t why that’s hard to acknowledge.
Calling me a goofball for what? Yall played a good game and you deserved to win but call a foul a foul
Never said it wasn’t a foul but saying he got “absolutely rocked” is silly and anyone with vision can tell Shai sold that contact and it wasn’t that bad
You think that game was officiated well?
I think every game is officiated like shit and the rules in the NBA are ass overall so what’s your point
Camara’s been earning himself a real payday lately
3 more years at 20/year
Toumani “The only one SGA ever feared” Camara
Maybe set a pick idk
Hot damn he’s good.
I never thought I’d have pity for the Thunder.
Good thing Tou didn’t step on Dame’s foot there
Why
Came close to potentially messing up his ankle
Defenders are required to play defense with their feet and body positioning—not by using their arms or hands as physical barriers or bars to slow down, control, or redirect an opponent.
Yep! Stellar defense by Tou here! Glad you agree.
This is funny for you to say seeing as how the Thunder defense is so good at using their hands and arms to disrupt offenses. Its literally the key to their whole defense and it works.