You have to hand it to the Rockets. For a team that’s stuck in the middle of the pack in defensive rating, they are still capable of some of the best stretches of defense of any team in the league when they hunker down and get to it. The Blazers don’t really have the talent on the floor to keep teams second guessing their offense, but after re-watching a couple earlier possessions, the Rockets were often rotating to the open man faster than the ball could get there. It was like watching a high school team run the shell drill, with the varsity playing D and the freshman team told to rotate the ball in order around the three-point line without dribbling. Better yet — or worse yet for Portland — Houston swallowed up many players that even attempted to poke around in the lane, and as a result the Blazers only had 19 attempts within 10 feet all night.

The Blazers had the opposite effect with their defense. Though a couple loose balls didn’t go Portland’s way, the Rockets committed points-in-the-paintular manslaughter. Carl Landry and Luis Scola had their way inside just by positioning themselves well to take advantage of some Portland gambling in the passing lanes, and Aaron Brooks ran the old Potomac Two-Step on his way to 33 points. No Blazer point guard could come close to staying in front of him and he burned Portland’s help rotations whether the stepped up on him or hung back on their marks.

And yet the Blazers were in it for reasons mostly tied to a solid assist rate (24.5), the Rockets obliterating themselves with 14 misses at the free-throw line (out of 43!)  and . . . some timely threes I suppose. There were plenty of things to get irked about, but mostly you just have to shrug your shoulders at another bad matchup and nod your head that it wasn’t a blowout.

Individual Thoughts:

LaMarcus Aldridge faced a lot of the same looks and double teams the Jazz effectively threw at him the night before, except he made quicker decisions, reacting to the defense quicker and getting the ball rolling around the perimeter. The four blocks were impressive but I can’t say it was from him being more active than usual, just that he was playing against the team which gets the second-most shots blocked on average.

This was one of Rudy Fernandez’ better games of the season, though eight of those 25 points came when the Blazers were playing the foul-timeout-three game in the final minute. It was wonderful watching him out-maneuver Houston’s defenders going around those picks, and equally awful watching him play with the ball and struggle (and fail) to get around Luis Scola. I have to admit I’m going through a expectation readjustment with Rudy at the moment, having expected him to be a little more of a driver-creator-cutter than he’s been. That shouldn’t take away from the fact that he was absolutely everywhere on the court and was mostly fantastic.

Steve Blake hit a couple crucial shots when the Blazers were bogged down on offense and also got torched, blazed, razed and fumigated by Aaron Brooks. Some of the shots he was hitting were a tad out of his normal comfort zone, however, and his performance dipped as the Blazers needed him to do more with Andre Miller being wholly ineffective. Credit him for the highest assist rate on the team, which at first glance was easy to gloss over.

Houston showed that when you really closeout Webster on the arc, he’s not going to be able to do a whole lot in half-court sets without post guys spacing the floor. He’s not a consistent enough off the dribble to take advantage of the few over-rotations from the Rockets and since he wasn’t hitting his — mostly contested — shots (1-of-7), he only played 21 minutes.

Andre Miller had an almost identical night to Webster — 1-of-6, 20 minutes, two points — but didn’t play well for complete opposite reasons. The Rockets didn’t respect him  on the perimeter and packed the lane. That Miller has looked a little worn down the last week didn’t help.

How many ways are there to say that Juwan Howard was Juwan Howard? The Rockets are vulnerable to big men that are bigger or more athletic, but not so much to guys that are relying more on wits and fundamentals.

Nic Batum-tum-tum, someone probably wants you in their room. Did anyone expect him to look this good, this early. 12 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists in 28 minutes while moving well off the ball and creating some off the dribble while committing just one turnover. All game I was wondering how long it would take for someone to start the “Batum for Starter” train, and sure enough Ben Golliver got it going before the clock struck 12 on the east coast. Legit question: If you could get them both at the same contract, would you rather have Batum, Battier or Ariza?

The Blazers needed more from Jerryd Bayless than 11 points and three assists. Strange to say, but since this is the first prolonged stretch of extended playing time in his career, he could be hitting the theoretical rookie wall, especially since Houston was able to key on him so well.

Jeff Pendergraph looks like he’s going through the same rough stretch that Dante Cunningham went through a little while ago.

While we already had an idea of it, the Blazers have one hell of a second unit. Led by Andre Miller (7 assists) — whose play is really starting to accent the shortcomings of Steve Blake — the tempo increased, perfect lobs were thrown, easy buckets were obtained and the bench briefly had the look of something special. Travis Outlaw hit his Travis Outlaw shots (23 points) but it was Miller and Rudy Fernandez who were facilitating and creating. And unlike the Sergio-Rudy connection of yesteryear, the Miller-Rudy tango is a two-way street.

The Rockets tried to put a downer on the night — which was already fairly down for a season opener due to Houston’s thrill-lacking style — but the Blazers never seemed to be in great peril. Instead of “Oh, Crap, we better start playing”, they seemed to take on a more “Alright, Blokes, let’s put a lid on this already” attitude in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t quite the killer instinct you want to see, but in such an uneven game it’s nice that when the opponent made a late run, the Blazers didn’t have to survive, they had an answer ready.

So, they’re 1-0, most expectations were met, nothing terrible happened and the Blazers showed that they can win ugly. More please!

On to the players:

I get the feeling we’re going to be talking early and often about Greg Oden in most recaps. Most folks are going to stare at the 7 in the turnover column, as Greg committed a number of offensive fouls and off-ball penalties, but at least two of the gimmies were not his fault. That said, Oden still got stripped a couple times in the post and it seems as though he has trouble with undersized players like Carl Landry (or Corey Maggette when GS goes really small) who use ball swipes and balance-altering techniques rather than straight body-to-body defense. Not a huge cause for concern, but the turnovers did seem to throw off Oden’s offense, which in turn might had led to his late flurry of fouls. He did establish fairly good position in the paint a number of times and Outaw was unable to get him the ball, which is why I want Miller on the court with No. 52 at all times. The good news is that no matter what was going on with his O, Oden owned the defensive end. He rebounded like the great rebounder he is (12 boards) but more impressive were his timing and patience on his 5 blocks and his footwork on the pick-and-roll. In one second-half play, Aaron Brooks tried to take Oden off the dribble on the elbow, but Oden cut him off with three slide-steps forcing Brooks into a pull-up jumper. And despite the late foul trouble — of which Joel and LaMarcus shared — he shut down any last hopes the Rockets had in the final minutes by locking down the lane. Better yet, playing with 5 fouls, he played aggressive defense while not fouling out. Small steps, folks.

Brandon Roy had a steady line of 20, 5 and 5 but struggled from the field, going 5-of-18. No cause for concern, as he still played a strong floor game and looked every bit the leader of the team that he is. He did deffer to Andre Miller on a few occasions, but in the end it’s going to be Miller who has to make sacrifices.

As mentioned, Outlaw was the high scorer of the night and didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. He made his one-dribble pull-up jumper and scored in transition, but also missed some open players and messed up a fast-break or two. You take the good with the bad with Outlaw, but tonight was most definitely the good.

Martell Webster (14 points) did Chuck Hayes very wrong with a “Look At Me, I’m Healthy!” dunk and was overall a better player than we last saw of him two years ago. Rather than drift into the corner on offense, he made some strong moves to the hoops and even tossed a couple risky passes to open guys that were right on the money. He wasn’t really tested defensively tonight, so we’ll hold off on analysis there, but so far the results are just fine on Webs.

Steve Blake made a pair of threes and killed me when he made a great steal that could have started a fast-break and instead mysteriously paused for a moment as if to murder the break in cold blood. It hurt to see him do that, and as Wendell Maxey pointed out to me on Twitter, Andre Miller was at the scorer’s table the very next possession. His minutes were basically even with Miller, but over the course of the season I just don’t see how Blake is going to maintain a 50/50 platoon.

LaMarcus Aldridge was in foul trouble the entire night and had four turnovers but played fairly efficiently without much of a rhythm.

Andre Miller is the best passer this team has and also seems to have a knack for filling in gaps in the defense for open looks. It was strange to see him posting up — even on Brooks — when LMA and Oden were both on the court. Just as how the defense looks completely different with Oden in the game, the same effect applies to Millers presence on offense. No big spacing issues tonight, but I don’t know if Miller has ever been so open for the three he made in his life.

Joel was Joel and I am confident I can copy and paste that phrase every night and stick it here. That’s a compliment, mind you.

Finally, Rudy had his moments but looked rusty when trying to initiate the offense. Give him some time as he has much more to show us.

One last thought: It was nice to see Nate stick with a nine-man rotation and not muddle things by trying to force Jerrdy or Dante or Juwan into the game. We would all like to see the young guys play, but the rotation looked very organized and streamlined.

All in all, we may not want to return for a second helping of this contest, but it puts everyone involved in a good enough place before going back to work.

That’s right, one of the most anticipated seasons in recent Blazer history begins tonight at the Rose Garden. Fun fact: this is the first time since the 2002-03 season that the Blazers actually kick off their season at the Rose Garden. Fun fact #2, the Blazers have not lost a home season opener (i.e. the first game at home) since the 00-01 season. Just throwing those out there if you want to feel extra knowledgeable at lunch or something. Before we talk about the Blazers, we must talk about the opponents. *cue ominous music* The Houston Rockets.

(Sidenote:  Just to throw it out there, I would like nothing more than to pummel the Rockets by 20. Not bitter or anything. Moving on.)

Now plenty has changed since we last saw the Rockets play the Blazers. There is no Yao Ming to cause us all undue stress and anxiety. There is no Tracy McGrady…oh wait he wasn’t there anyways. There is no Ron Artest to jack up crazy shots. Actually I’m going to miss that. It seems like it should be a cakewalk tonight, right? Not too fast. The Rockets have been without Yao and McGrady so many times over the past few years it would almost be a chore to point them all out. The key is that they have always found ways to be successful without them on the court. I do not expect this to change at all. Why? Rick Adelman does a tremendous job of getting his guys to buy in to the system. And the system works. The Rockets are going to work hard and work together. Offensively they’ll be more open but looking to move the ball more. Without one guy to really consistently feed, their offense could have more of a natural flow to it. Also, without a superstar, the need for defense goes up a bit. They’ll be looking to not give anything up easy. Remember, there were times in last season’s playoffs where their second unit came up huge. The lineups that shouldn’t have been scoring (Lowry/Wafer/Landry) were scoring.

What the Rocket lack in proven top talent, they make up for in hungry guys looking to seize an opportunity. Without Yao, McGrady or Artest, guys are going to have to step up offensively. Aaron Brooks comes into tonight looking to repeat his impressive post-season numbers and you know he’s salivating at the chance to match-up against Portland. In last year’s first round series, Brooks averaged 15.3 points, 4.3 assists, shot 44% from the field and 44% from behind the arc. Trevor Ariza will be asked to shoulder a major load. There are questions about whether he can do it, but you have to understand a guy like him has always wanted this kind of role. You never know what kind of explosions they might produce. Another key to this game is going to be Luis Scola. He’s been known to score (gave Blazers fits last year), but now without Yao he IS the post-offense. Will he be able to improve with more attention or will more touches mean more production? Not to forget about the undersized–but tough duo of Carl Landry and Chuck Hayes and the always reliable Shane Battier. I just expect a lot of scrap from the Rockets tonight, and I’m hoping the Blazers know they’ll have to fight.

Speaking of Portland, it’s Game #1 of 82+. There has been a ton of hype and hooplah surrounding this Blazer team coming into this season. Tonight we finally get to take a look at this season’s team. I’ve tried to avoid the preseason like the swine flu and for the most part have succeeded. Now with my own eyes I get to see  what we’ve got going. The unanswered questions are spinning around in my head. How good will the second unit be? How good is Oden? Are Roy and LMA still good with paychecks? How will Martell Webster look? What kind of chemistry do Roy/LMA/Oden have? Or Roy/Miller? Or Miller/Oden? I’ll admit this, the person I’m most excited to see is Greg Oden. And yes, all eyes will be on Mr. Oden tonight. I’ve always tried to temper my expectations with him and not give him any attention, but he’s done enough to make me take notice. Can he carry over that pre-season dominance to the regular season? And how giddy will Blazer fans be if he can? He’s got a nice opportunity but tonight will also be a nice test for Oden. What Scola/Hayes/Landry lack in size, they make up for in physicality and effort. Sometimes the undersized big men can get under people’s skin. I’m interested to see how he handles it.

Keys to the Game

• Be prepared to fight. Houston might not have a lot of ‘superstar’ talent offensively, but they’re going to make up for it. They won’t be letting Portland get anything easy. They may not concentrate as much on Roy as they did during the post-season, but believe you me they’ll be looking to make everyone not number 7 beat them. My biggest fear is Houston just out-working and out-scrapping a more talented Blazer team and winning a game they shouldn’t because Portland wasn’t ready to out-tough the Rockets.

• Take advantage inside. With the exception of 6-11 Chris David Andersen from Australia, the Rockets have next to no size. Take advantage of this. Look to post Oden and Aldridge up. Perimeter players need to attack the basket and try to get to the foul line.

• Limit turnovers. Make Houston earn every bucket, don’t let them get easy ones.

For many of you, this is your first look at this Blazer team. I myself am included. One of the big issues with a season opener is that as a fan you have 6 months of pent-up thoughts. There’s about a million questions that are going to go unanswered tonight. It becomes easy to just nitpick every little thing. ‘Oh snap, LaMarcus dribbled off his foot we shouldn’t have paid him’ or ‘Dang, Brandon’s 3-10 right now we shouldn’t have paid him’ or ‘Oh no, Greg’s in foul trouble again it’s a lost cause’. All those are human nature…but realize this is the frist game. There’s so much basketball left after tonight it’s not even funny. This team shouldn’t be at its best tonight and the sooner people realize this the better it will be.