Archive for March, 2010

This is a win. Has to be. No, it’s not a disaster if it becomes a loss, but at this stage of the season, with playoff implications, at the Rose Garden, you hope the Blazers can take care of business from the word “Go”. Because really, the Knicks aren’t as bad as you think. 18th in Offensive Efficiency, 24th in Defensive Efficiency. Still bad, mind you, but not as awful as when you watch them for a quarter or two and can’t help but to think why they aren’t playing in the D-League. They don’t rebound, don’t get to the [...]

A few days ago we took a look at Portland’s excellent defensive effort against the Dallas Mavericks and especially Dirk Nowitzki, who was held to a mere 13 shot attempts. The Blazers fronted, doubled, pushed and pretty much did everything they could do — “they” starting with LaMarcus Aldridge — to keep Dirk from getting the ball, or at least from getting the ball in a comfortable position. Clearly, it worked. The Blazers won and Dirk did not have a great game. Then they thrashed the pick-and-roll heavy New Orleans Hornets Saturday night before beating the Oklahoma City Thunder Sunday. [...]

We’re forgoing the usual Re-Thoughts of Saturday night’s 112-101 victory over the Hornets because, in the context of the entire season, there really wasn’t that much to talk about. The following two equations will explain why the Blazers won: Portland Offense = A+. New Orleans Defense = Repeat the Third Grade. The Hornets get knocked out of the playoff race and Portland goes up 5.5 games on the Memphis Grizzlies. That’s swell. The game wasn’t a complete throwaway, though, because it gave us another chance to look at Portland’s defense, this time because the Hornets run the pick-and-roll as much [...]

“We just scrapped,” Roy said. “It was one of those games where it wasn’t pretty, but it was kind of one of those situations where I felt it was kind of a playoff-type of game and it was good that we’ve been there before to get that experience.” The above quote from Brandon Roy was stolen from the Associated Press report of the game, but it was appropriate and I had to use it. Portland went into last night’s Northwest Division battle with Oklahoma City, playing some of their best basketball of the season. They had won 13 of their [...]

It’s pretty easy to draw the 2009 Blazers-2010 Thunder parallels. Both young teams that exceeded expectations, with writers in the preseason thinking they were making sleeper picks for the last few spots in the Western Conference playoffs, only to have those teams compete for home-court advantage. But for some reason, you aren’t hearing as much of the “They’re too young to win a playoff series” talk as Portland heard around this time last season. Maybe we will as we get deeper into April, but at the moment everyone seems so smitten with Kevin Durant (rightfully so) that they throw the [...]

In the game of basketball, it’s never a bad thing to be in control of your own destiny. And that is exactly the position that the Blazers find themselves in tonight. A Blazer win not only brings the Blazers one step closer to the Playoffs, it also would eliminate a potential ‘contender’ to the #8 spot. Now of course as good as that sentence just looked, the Hornets are 9 1/2 games behind Portland for that spot. That being said…it’s still cool to be able to eliminate someone. Coming into tonight the Hornets have lost 13 of their last 17 [...]

After Thursday night’s victory over the Dallas Mavericks, I said the Blazers looked “prepared and cohesive” with regards to their defensive game plan, particularly involving Dirk Nowitzki. Because of this, they not only held him to 13 shot attempts in 41 minutes, but limited their good-look sacrifices to Dirk’s teammates as well. Now it’s time for some show and tell. Jimmy brought his frog, Susie brought her dad’s Ken Griffey Jr. autographed baseball and we brought some defensive possessions of one of Portland’s best wire-to-wire defensive games of the season. Let’s take a look. Defensive Possession One: We’ll start things [...]

Over at NBA.com, Scott Howard Cooper wrote a very nice perspective piece — complete with a thoughtful perspective, how novel — on the power of the “Blazermaniacs” with regards to their, and your, influence on Paul Allen and the front office. Essentially, he says, the power is yours. It’s nothing you don’t know, just well written and for a very large audience: Executives clash with executives all the time, especially brash executives like Pritchard and double-especially when the other side, the guys at the top of the letterhead, may be looking at an eventual power vacuum creating a scramble for [...]

About a month ago I took a look at Portland’s impending situation with Greg Oden becoming eligible for a contract extension this summer. Then, I said that the Blazers would be best served to lock him up to the five-year extension he’ll be asking for, at whatever discount you can get after another season-ending injury. Oden won’t be cheap, but he’s not going to get any cheaper while he’s healthy, and thus worth offering a contract. The other question is what the Blazers are going to do about their backup center situation. Joel Przybilla re-tore he patellar tendon and is [...]

You can let that one soak in a little. Stretch your arms out, roll your neck a little, enjoy a beverage and enjoy the soft landing after the four-day plunge into mischief and madness. For now, all eyes are back on actual basketball. How sweet it is. Nectar-y, even. This wasn’t Portland’s masterpiece, but it is a great example of a team buying into what they had been practicing during a break between games. Many team’s will come into games after a lengthy layoff looking rusty and out of rhythm — the Blazers did just that last week — but [...]