The play of Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge has pushed Portland to three straight victories. The most recent came Sunday against the Chicago Bulls. Credit: Steve Dykes-US PRESSWIRE

Great win tonight. Made a rookie mistake at the end. Didn’t mean any disrespect to the Bulls. Much respect for that team.

— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) November 19, 2012

He’s learning. He’s learning fast, but he’s still learning. The lessons he’s learned so far are that he can play in this league, he can excel in this league, and he can lead the Blazers to victories. The lesson he learned Sunday night, veteran teams like the Chicago Bulls, short one super star and looking less and less like a serious threat to the Heat or Celtics in the East, don’t like to get beat and they don’t like it when a young guy, only 10 games into his career, doesn’t play by the unwritten rules and dribble out the clock when the game is over.

The he in that paragraph is of course Damian Lillard. And you know what I say? Let them fume and say whatever it is that Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson and whoever else (I think Nate Robinson’s name was mentioned) said to Damian at half court after the buzzer, and let there be some understanding among the best basketball players in the world that the biggest sin a player can commit is to do something at the end of a lopsided win that could be construed as disrespect. At the end of the day Lillard’s actions were exactly as coach Terry Stotts described them in his post game remarks: A lot to do about nothing.

Damian, for what it’s worth, handled the situation like a pro (courtesy of the estimable Danny Nowell of Portland Roundball Society) just as he’s handled everything that’s come his way so far.

One thing that came his way Sunday, way before his dunk to set off the streamers, was the Chicago Bulls. Sunday’s wasn’t the statement win that it could have been if Portland would have hung onto the 15-point lead they established early in the third quarter, but with the Blazers’ limited resources, I would say a quality win against a quality opponent is a statement of sorts. It says that this team can put together 48 minutes of winning basketball, and it says that even when things fall apart a little and a big lead becomes a small lead all will not be surrendered.

It also says that on a given Sunday night Ronnie Price and Jared Jeffries can actually have a positive impact on a game. An unlikely statement considering that preseason Price and Jeffries were thought of as non-factor add-ons. Jeffries has already shown that in limited minutes he can affect a game’s outcome. He does that through solid defensive rotations, taking charges, taking care of the class, and sometimes scoring inside. Sunday, Jeffries proved that he doesn’t really have diminishing returns as his minutes stretch into the double digits then into the 20s. Sunday it was Jeffries playing down the stretch, not J.J. Hickson who played well but did more harm than good or Meyers Leonard who had his first night since preseason where he couldn’t stay on the foul because of fouls.

But Jared wasn’t just a space filler down the stretch. Jeffries grabbed an offensive rebound with 5:37 left in the fourth and Portland ahead by nine that led to a foul and free throws (he split the pair). Two and a half minutes later with Portland up eight, he grabbed another offensive and although Nicolas Batum was short on his three attempt on the extended possession, Wesley Matthews didn’t miss his put-back on Nic’s shot. Still further, Jeffries converted on a lay-up with 1:11 remaining to push Portland back to a double digit advantage, and then he went one of two from the line with 21 seconds to play making sure that Chicago needed at least two possessions in 20 seconds just to have a shot at overtime. Big plays and big contributions all.

Jared Jeffries is an unlikely hero, and to be honest he wasn’t really the hero Sunday, but an even unlikelier almost hero was Ronnie Price. This season Price has looked decent at best and not deserving of playing time (if only his back-up wasn’t the woefully incapable Nolan Smith) at his worst. Sunday was hands-down Ronnie’s best night. Forget the scoring (10 points to become the first Blazer sub of the season to reach double figures in scoring), forget the five assists, and forget the 20 minutes of solid defense with only one foul (remember a few games ago he picked up six personals in about 15 minutes), if Ronnie Price can play 20 minutes without leading Portland into a scoring sink-hole and if he can achieve anywhere near his +18 on close to a regular basis, there is hope that Damian Lillard can finish this season without his wheels falling off completely.

The purpose of a back-up is two-fold. Their first duty is to come into a game and limit the drop-off. Their second duty is to play effectively enough so the man they are coming in for can get some rest. Unfortunately the second part of the job, the giving of rest to a player of higher value, can not be done without the first part. A back-up who allows for too steep of a drop-off cannot be trusted with enough minutes to effectively rest their starter counter-part. I would say up to this point, Ronnie Price, using my aforementioned statement of purpose as a guide, has been an ineffective back-up. Tonight, as evidenced by the combined +18 and the season-low (by about 30 seconds) 32:15 minutes played for Damian Lillard, Ronnie Price did his job. Hopefully he can do it again in Portland’s next game.

The story that will be told about Sunday’s win will be that Portland played well enough to win despite playing bad enough to lose at the end of the the third and fourth quarters. In a sense, that’s true. There’s another story here too, though. Sunday the Blazers found themselves in unfamiliar territory. They were playing with a lead that was flirting with blowout territory and they were getting tangible contributions from a bench that for a few moments was starting to look like that great white buffalo call “A ROTATION.”

A young team on new ground can make mistakes. Those mistakes were made, and a veteran team such as the Bulls capitalized on them. Portland had the fortitude, and a big enough lead, to hold off the charge. Coach Stotts said after the game that Portland will be addressing and probably working on closing out games. What he didn’t have to say though, was that in time, when this Blazer team is 10 games older and has likely seen a few more late-game leads, those kind of mistakes, both the kind that turn an 11-point lead to a six-point lead in the span of three minutes and those that draw the ire of a “no nonsense never do anything to upset or disrespect an opponent” player such as Joakim Noah, will cease to be an issue.

Portland travels to Phoenix to meet the Suns on Wednesday.

Couple of quick things:

• During the post-game locker room session Will Barton (who had a nice nine minute stretch in which coach Stotts admitted he had no idea what was going to happen when Will had the ball) and Eliot Williams (who is out for the year and will be a free agent at the end of the season) got in a argument over who was better Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. Actually, the argument was about whether or not Kobe has fallen off, as Barton claimed people were saying. Will Barton was born in 1991. Eliot Williams was born in 1989. Jordan won his last title in 1998. You can understand that two guys might be wrong about who was better considering that they were infants when Jordan took over the NBA in the early 90s.
• Also Sunday’s post-game locker room session seemed to include almost no press for LaMarcus Aldridge. LA finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds in a very solid performance against the defensive minded Joakim Noah. However, the attention was being paid to Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews who co-lead the game in scoring with 21 apiece and Damian Lillard who is becoming the go-to guy media-wise. LA is a good quote, but he is known to be a little gun-shy with the local press corps. I’m sure he appreciates not having to be the center of attention all the time.

And as a post-script:

On a more somber note, Jason Quick dropped this tweet only a few minutes after Portland’s game ended:

Brandon Roy will not make triumphant return to Rose Garden on Friday with Timberwolves: He will have right knee surgery this week.

— Jason Quick (@jwquick) November 19, 2012

It speaks for itself really. I know a lot of Blazer fans were looking forward to giving Brandon the welcome home that he deserved. They’ll still get to give it to him, but it won’t be this coming Friday. My guess is he’ll be retired again before the All-Star Break. The good thing about Brandon retiring for good this time is that when we do get to honor him in the Rose Garden it will be as a civilian and not as a member of the opposing team. Here’s a piece from the Classical that ran when Brandon retired the first time.

Box Score

Standings

Pippen Ain’t Easy

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

Nov.. 18, 2011; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard Wesley Matthews (2) salutes the crowd after hitting a three point shot during the fourth quarter of the game against the Chicago Bulls at the Rose Garden. The Blazers won the game 102-94. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-US PRESSWIRE

Stopping Loul Deng will be a key for Portland against the Bulls Sunday night. Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-US PRESSWIRE

Building on victories is a big point of emphasis in the NBA. Although most coaches and basketball sages will say, and won’t be wrong, that a team learns more, about themselves and about the game as a whole, when they lose, it’s the taking one win, learning from it, and flipping into multiple wins that actually helps a team evolve.

Portland is basically without a signature win at home this season (minus the home opener which had a lot to do with troubles on the opposing team’s bench). Friday’s OT thriller was nice. But go back and watch that game. By the third quarter it was clear that Houston was making the kind of mistakes that were going to let Portland back in the game. The Blazers snatched a victory in amazing fashion, that’s for sure, but the Rockets were more than willing to give it up in crunch time.

Sunday the Blazers host the Chicago Bulls. This is a Bulls team that is trying their best to hold on until Derrick Rose returns. They are not the Bulls teams of the years past. They are beatable. In fact, they were beaten Saturday night in Los Angeles by a Clippers team that the Blazers did OK against.

Portland needs to take advantage of any momentum or carry over from the Houston win, and they need to do all they can to maximize the effort output of Chicago’s road-weary starters. If they can put those things together, the Blazers might just have the formula needed to cook up a signature win.

Blazers Starting 5: PG Damian Lillard, SG Wesley Matthews, SF Nicolas Batum, PF LaMarcus Aldridge, C J.J. Hickson

Bulls Starting 5: PG Kirk Hinrich, SG Richard Hamilton, SF Loul Deng, PF Carlos Boozer, C Joakim Noah

Holding his knee, holding his knee and down…

These are the opening lines of the Adidas All In Derrick Rose The Return commercial that has been played so many times on TNT already this season that it is becoming the de facto soundtrack to the season. Rose is out. And even if Adidas wants you to believe otherwise, he is going to stay out for awhile.

The Bulls can compete in the East without Rose, in fact they’ll make the Playoffs in the top half of the division, probably, playing without Rose for at least the first half of the season. That being said, minus their top guy, this team is vulnerable, as their 5-4 record will attest to.

Take a look at the rest of their roster too. This is not the Bulls team of seasons gone by. Gone is sharp shooter Kyle Korver, gone is Omer Asik, gone is the bench unit that might have been one of the best in the league. In their place are Nate Robinson and Marco Bellinelli. Nate Rob has his moments, but one of those moments, the one that best encapsulates Nate in my opinion, was the time when he was playing with the Knicks and he lit up the Blazers in the third quarter in a game at the Rose Garden. Nate got hot, and made something like five or six shots in a row. But then he missed his next two or three, and that next two or three turned into seven or eight. The lead he’d helped shoot New York into, he also shot New York’s way out of. Nate’s that kind of player. Bellinelli is no substitute for the sure-shot Kyle Korver. I don’t think I need to elaborate too much on that.

What to Watch For

• How will Damian Lillard deal with Kirk Hinrich’s defense? Lillard’s worst game at home came against the quick hands and ball stopping defense of Jeff Teague. Jeff Teague came of age under the same defensive tutelage as Kirk Hinrich. Expect Hinrich to be dogged on defense against Damian. Hinrich, however, is a bit older than Teague, and shouldn’t cause Damian nearly as much trouble on offense.
• Can Portland stop the Bulls inside? Carlos Boozer is widely regarded as very over rated, but Joakim Noah can score a little, especially on put backs and stuff like that. If the Blazers can limit Chicago’s easy looks at the rim, they should have a good chance in this one.
• Which team wins the battle of the wings? Loul Deng vs. Nicolas Batum. Wesley Matthews vs. Rip Hamilton. Whichever team gets the better of those match-ups wins. I like Wesley over Rip, but the Batum/Deng dog fight could be pretty special.
• Will Meyers Leonard get to double digits in scoring? It has to happen sometime. Chicago has a small front line. Sunday could be the night.

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

Basketball's over for the Blazers, but it's not over for everybody yet. Photo courtesy of NBA All Star Wallpaper.

The 2010-11 season is over for the Trail Blazers, and because of this, Portlanders are in somewhat of an unfortunate position. There’s basketball left to play, and the Blazers won’t be playing it. I’m a fan of the Blazers first, but a fan of the NBA a very close second, and quitting pro basketball cold turkey is not in the cards for me.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that Portland’s season is over early for yet another year, and in the next day or two I’ll definitely have a season recap post. In the meantime, there’s still Playoff basketball left, and if the second round and beyond is anything like the first round it’s sure to be a barnburner. Watching basketball from here on out will be a little easier; less potential for cardiac arrest and/or deep depression based on the trials and tribulations of the Blazers. But it’s important to have some investment in games, even if it’s not the die-hard investment that someone like me has in the Portland Trail Blazers.

In order to better flesh out which team is going to be my team going forward, I’ve developed a formula of sorts that assigns a numerical value for criteria that play a key role in choosing which teams I root for when the Blazers are not involved.

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