April 12, 2013; Dallas, TX, USA; Denver Nuggets guard Andre Iguodala (9) reacts with guard Andre Miller (24) in overtime against the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center. The Mavs beat the Nuggets 108-105. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

The Denver Nuggets were officially eliminated from playoff contention on Thursday in a disappointing loss to the Golden State Warriors. No player has more reason to be disappointed than one time Blazer point guard, Andre Miller. In his 14 years in the NBA and 9 playoff appearances Miller has never won a series. Every year since 2004 (with the exception of 2007 when he was traded to the 76ers mid-season and missed the playoffs entirely) his team has been eliminated in the first round.

Miller captured my heart before Portland traded him for the much maligned Raymond Felton, and I wanted so badly to see him succeed. The Nuggets finished the season with a franchise best 57 wins and 25 losses; surely this was meant to be his year! Alas, it was not in the cards and Stephen Curry’s Warriors kept Andre’s tradition alive; which is really too bad, from my selfish standpoint. It’s not that I wanted to see the Warriors loose, as a matter of fact, I’m glad they’ve climbed their way out of the NBA doldrums, but I just wanted one of the best facilitators of our time to taste a piece of playoff success while he’s still around to be appreciated.

Miller is 10^th All-time in assists and is set to pass another Blazer great, Rod Strickland, next season. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping as he moves up in history he’ll move up in the playoffs. Just once; that’s all I ask. There have been many excellent players to retire without a ring, but how many of such caliber have never advanced to round 2? Even in the ‘Rise With Us’ years of Brandon Roy, Andre came up short. It’s not for lack of ability. He has been criticized here and there for slowing the tempo too much, but you’d be hard pressed to find a team that wouldn’t take him. Now, if only a team could take him further.

@davidmackaypdx | @ripcityproject | davidmackaypdx@gmail.com

Apr 14, 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets guard Andre Iguodala (9) is fouled as he drives to the basket during the second half against the Portland Trailblazers at the Pepsi Center. The Nuggets won 118-109. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

Portland nearly accomplished the impossible yesterday afternoon; stealing a road win in Denver. Alas, it was not meant to be. After trailing by double figures for most of the game, the Blazers brought it back to a 4 point deficit with just 3 minutes remaining, only to be vanquished by a late surge from Ty Lawson. The loss put the Nuggets at 37-3 at home this season (a Denver record) and extended the Blazers’ losing streak to 11.

So let’s grade the Blazers’ efforts in areas of excellence and deficiency to see what went wrong and what went right.

Shooting: B

• Portland shot over 46% as a team, which is right about where you’d expect them to be. Aside from Luke Babbitt (1/7), no one in particular seemed to be struggling. They did jack up more 3 pointers than I would have liked, but for the most part it worked to their favor. Lillard can be feast or famine at times, but he was certainly shooting well yesterday. Without Aldridge, Batum, or Matthews, if Lillard can’t hit, the game won’t even be competitive, so checking that box is of utmost importance.

Execution: C

• Portland has been driving me nuts with one offensive shortcoming more than any other lately; they eat up the clock. Every possession is a mess of blown screens, falling for traps, and passed up good looks. So much so, that by the time they hoist up the rock, it’s a necessity. This not only means a more difficult shot, but that the shooter isn’t always who it should be. The Blazers were fortunate to have their shots drop, because many of their opportunities came with a high degree of difficulty and a lot of wasted time. When you take the full 24, there needs to be a sense of deliberation. Portland’s helter-skelter trial and error has been their worst enemy.

Defense: C

• Now there’s a concept. To be fair, the Blazers were missing 3 of their 4 best players again. But the show must go on, no matter how ugly. In the absence of adequate wing defenders (Batum and Matthews) Andre Iguodala and Evan Fournier had a field day. The Nuggets are not a 3 point shooting team, but you wouldn’t have known it in yesterday’s game. Fournier, a rookie out of France, set a career high 24 points at our expense, including 3 treys. Portland was tired and late to step out on shooters. That’s not to say they only struggled at the arc, but interior defensive problems are nothing new for the Blazers.

Turnovers: D

• The Blazers turned the ball over 21 times. If you’ve diligently kept up with my pseudo-heresy (or just paid close attention during games), you may already know that Lillard has a hard time coping with the double team. Well, Denver was quick to exploit this, forcing 8 of those 21 turnovers by smothering the rookie point guard. Fortunately for Portland, Denver was equally sloppy with 21 TO’s of their own, but that’s no excuse. The ball changed directions so much it seemed more like a tennis match.

Rebounding: B

• I was actually pretty pleased on this front. The Blazers may have gotten off easy with Denver forward, Kenneth Faried, leaving the game almost immediately with a sprained ankle, but they’ll take what they can get. Actually, I’d like to single out one guy in particular to commend. Will Barton had just as many rebounds as J.J. Hickson! The 170 lb guard reeled in 9 boards yesterday. He just knows where to be, and I love it. Even on the offensive glass. As a team, Portland fell just 2 rebounds short of Denver, which is no easy feat; especially without LaMarcus.

Overall: C

• While the 2nd half run was pretty impressive, it was partially due to unforced Denver errors. This game was never supposed to be as close as it eventually was, so in that regard, it wasn’t so bad. The Blazers have a lot to work on though, and just 2 games left to snap this losing streak before the season ends. In order to win with their remaining healthy players, they must play more structured offense, move the ball well without turning it over, and find a way to prevent easy shots on defense. The Clippers are up next on Tuesday.

Top Performers
Portland: (PG) Damian Lillard – 30 Pts, 5 Reb, 6 Ast, 1 Stl, 2 Blk
Denver: (SG) Andre Iguodala – 28 Pts, 7 Reb, 9 Ast, 3 Stl, 3 Blk

Box Score

Standings

@davidmackaypdx | @ripcityproject | davidmackaypdx@gmail.com

Dec 20, 2012; Portland, OR, USA; Denver Nuggets small forward Danilo Gallinari (8) drives around Portland Trail Blazers center J.J. Hickson (21) at the Rose Garden. Mandatory Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-USA TODAY Sports

I think when you compete and you play hard you make things happen…Stats don’t matter most of the time. It’s not how well we play, it’s how we play.

The above quote was delivered by Portland’s head coach Terry Stotts following the Blazers’ 101-93 victory over the Denver Nuggets, their fourth victory in a row and a win that brings them back to .500 on the this young season, in response to a question about Portland’s continually “wacky” box scores.

Thursday’s box score is about was “wacky” as anybody is likely to see. The Blazers were outscored in the paint 74 to 28, they shot 36% from the field and 39% from three, they gave up an astonishing 31 fast break points will scoring only seven, and they led wire-to-wire in what never got closer than a one-possession game after Portland’s second bucket.

How is this possible, you might ask. Well, look no further than Denver’s 0-for-22 from three, or their overall shooting of 38-for-98, or the fact that until Ty Lawson hit a 20-footer with 38 seconds left in the game they hadn’t managed a single basket, not one, from outside the painted area. There’s futility, and then there’s the type of shooting night the Nuggets had Thursday.

But a bad shooting night in and of itself isn’t enough to doom a team. I point you to last Monday night. On that night, the Blazers shot a then NBA-record 0-of-20 from three (a record that lasted all of a week and a half), and still managed to walk off their home court victors by nearly 20 points. So what’s the difference between Portland’s performance last Monday (miss 20 threes in a row and win) and Denver’s on Thursday (miss 22 threes in a row and lose)? Well as the Nuggets were putting on a clinic in how not to shoot jump shots, the Blazers were stringing together what Damian Lillard described as probably his team’s most complete 48-minute game.

I tend to disagree with that assessment, the San Antonio win is still my high-water mark, but it is pretty safe to say Thursday was Portland’s best front-to-back team win. A team win that shows that this group is starting to coalesce, and regardless of the expectations, or the last game, or the next game, they’re going to make it a game almost every night of the week.

Quite possibly what’s most important about Thursday’s win, is that it came without LaMarcus Aldridge on the floor. Portland has so far overcome the absence of Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews. As valuable as Batum and Matthews are to the success of this team, the things they bring can be replaced. Lillard is as good or better at getting to the rack as both Nic and Wesley, their deep ball can be replaced by both Luke Babbitt and Damian, their defense can be compensated for (if not fully replaced) by a combination of Sasha Pavlovic, Ronnie Price, and Meyers Leonard.

But what LaMarcus brings to the table, nobody on the bench can replace. J.J. Hickson has been invaluable in the paint and on the glass but doesn’t have anywhere near the shooting ability of LA, Joel Freeland hasn’t proven to be much more than a long-term project, same with Meyers Leonard. Luke Babbitt has emerged as maybe the most reliable scorer off the bench, but he’s a stretch four, he’s inside game is totally non-existent. Thursday, LA’s loss was felt, there’s no doubt about it, but not having on the court didn’t sink the Blazers.

“It’s tough when you don’t have your best player out there,” Damian Lillard said after the game. “For us to come out, and for guys to step up, I think it says a lot about our team.”

I feel like that about sums it up. Portland needed guys to step up to take the place of their number-one option. It didn’t have to be one guy, but the missed scoring and the missed minutes that came with LaMarcus being out had to be accounted for.

Thursday only Victor Claver and Will Barton didn’t score of the Blazers who saw time, and Jared Jeffries collected the only DNP-CD. Four of five starters reached double digits in scoring, and no single guy turned the ball over more than twice. Those are the type of positive numbers that tend to lead to wins.

For how strange a box score Thursday had, there wasn’t really a sense of shock or anything like that in Portland’s locker room post game. The win itself might have been out of the ordinary, but winning, as a thing is starting to become commonplace for these Blazers. You know the old saying, “act like you’ve been there before?” That’s how Portland was acting following Thursday’s win, partially because when you win four in a row, you have been there before, but also because as important as one win is, the goals are things like finishing with a winning record and making the Playoffs.

There’s a long way to go, and I don’t think the Blazers are a Playoff team, but some projections had Portland in and around the neighbor hood of 20 wins. Right now they’ve got 12 wins. Something very serious would have to happen for this team to fall far enough to not completely obliterate that number.

Also, this happened Thursday night:

Portland looks to stretch their winning streak to five (should the Mayans be wrong about the end of the world and stuff) Saturday night against the Phoenix Suns at the Rose Garden.

Couple of quick things:

• With his 14 points Thursday, Luke Babbitt has now scored 10 or more points in three-straight games. Fourteen is now a season-high for Luke. Babbitt got probably his first non-ironic standing ovation after picking up his sixth foul with 2:15 left in the fourth quarter. As much as I love to see Babbitt playing well, he still needs to figure out that he’s is absolutely the most valuable on the catch and shoot. Luke has been trying to work off the dribble, which is not playing to his strength. Hopefully going 3-for-3 from deep in the second quarter is the kind of thing that opens his eyes to what he should be doing.
• Damian Lillard’s dunk was certainly his highlight of the night. He downplayed it some, mentioning that he’s capable of dunking the ball, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Thursday started with Lillard receiving his trophy for winning November’s Rookie of the Month. He downplayed that too, saying he’d be giving the trophy to his mother since she knows what to do with it and he tends to not get too caught up in that kind of stuff. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Dame after almost every home game now, and I firmly believe his humility is sincere and not just an affectation. Whether Dame is humble for real or he’s putting it on, he believes in his own ability. There may come a time in Lillard’s career where his confidence in his ability eclipses his natural inclination to deflect positive accolades. There may come a time when Damian cares about winning awards and collecting trophies. Right now, he could care less about all those things. Thursday, Lillard was once again off on his shot. He didn’t make a field goal until the third quarter, he missed all but one of his six three-point shots, and his 3-for-14 from the field was far from good. However, he collected 10 assists, four rebounds, and a steal, and coughed the ball up only two times in 35 minutes.
• J.J. Hickson picked up another double-double: 18 points and 18 rebounds. Pencil him in for that double-double most of the rest of the way.

Box Score

Standings

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

Dec 20, 2012; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers center J.J. Hickson (21) runs off the court after a game against the Denver Nuggets at the Rose Garden. Hickson scored 18 points and had 18 rebounds in the 101-93 win. Mandatory Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-USA TODAY Sports