Gerald Wallace had a breakout game both on offense and defense, helping the Blazers top the Heat in Miami. Photo courtesy of the AP.

There is going to be plenty of talk following the Blazers’ win on Tuesday in Miami, and none of it is going to be about Portland. My guess is the national media will focus on the problems LeBron James and his cronies are having against teams over .500, about the problems the Heat are having finding their identity, about how they have the tools but they just can’t put it all together and a result of that is losing to inferior teams. Let them talk. Because for the most part all those things are true.

Miami has been struggling against good teams, and they do seem to be at loose ends at probably the absolute wrong time in the season. When comparing teams across the Association, Miami is certainly the more important team, and likely the better team, but when looking at two teams, as you do when they are playing each other, Tuesday night Portland was the better team. Miami may make the Conference Finals, they may even make the Finals. Portland may not get out of the first round for the third season in a row. But Tuesday night they out played Miami. Period. End of sentence.

Where do we start breaking down the biggest win of the season? We can start with turnovers. The Blazers took care of the rock. Or at least Portland had fewer turnovers than Miami. Limiting turnovers and forcing turnovers are effort stats. The Blazers undoubtedly knew that it was going to take maximum effort to beat Miami on their home court, and maximum effort, or at least as close to max is any team can get on the second of a back-to-back 64 games into what has been a marathon season, was what they gave.

How about rebounds? Again, rebounds are effort stats. Portland won the overall rebound battle, 34 to 31, and more importantly won the offensive rebound battle, 12 to 6. Crashing the defensive boards limits possessions; crashing the offensive boards can be the difference between wining and losing.

Free throws. Those are important right? Portland missed only one free throw, shooting 18-of-19. Miami was right on the Blazers’ heels, shooting 15-of-19, but what’s more important is that only four of the free throws attempted by the Heat were credited to LeBron James. LeBron hasn’t exactly made his living at the line, but keeping him from getting to the stripe limits his overall effectiveness.

Two more important numbers: 38 and 31. Those were the scoring numbers for Dwayne Wade and LeBron James respectively. Here’s one more number: 10. That’s the number of points scored that only a single other Miami Heat player reached. Yes LeBron and Wade are two of the best players in the league, you’d have to be out of your mind to dispute that fact, but it’s pretty clear that those two guys all by themselves can’t beat good teams.

Portland has won and lost since the All-Star break, and really all season, based on how well they were hitting jump shots. Tuesday, Portland knocked down a lot of jumpers. More importantly they hit important jumpers. There’s plenty to go around just in the night’s final period. Starting with Rudy Fernandez. Thirty seconds into the fourth quarter, Wade blocked a meek jumper from Brandon Roy and went coast-to-coast for a big dunk tying the game at 77. The next trip down the court Rudy stepped up and drilled a three. With a team like Miami, with a disinterested fan base and two electrifying finishers that can basically raise the dead, keeping the crowd at bay is important to say the least. Wade’s dunk got the crowd going, and Rudy’s three shut them down. When trying to hold a lead against a great team in their building, that’s not small feat.

After Rudy, every Blazer that played in the fourth quarter hit a big shot. Andre Miller drained a deep two after picking up a fumbled dribble, Brandon Roy and Wesley Matthew knocked down clutch threes, Gerald Wallace converted at the rim and in the paint, and LaMarcus Aldridge hit a clutch nine-foot to put Portland up nine with only slightly more than two minutes to play. Clearly that’s basically every shot in the final 12 minutes, and in a sense that’s the point. Miami didn’t go quietly, and Portland matched their intensity and their scoring. This season Portland has had their fair share of costly dry spells. Nobody would have cried too hard if Miami had come back Tuesday night and Portland’s shooting had gone south. But Portland stuck to their game, got their players into the right spots, and most importantly hit the shots they needed to hit.

Portland can do no worse than a split of this final four-game road trip, and although a 4-0 road trip balances out the 0-4 road trip in November and December, a trip that I feel like I bring up way too much, I feel like these last two wins might be good enough to not be too worried about the games that are left. Atlanta is a hard read. Some nights they are good; some nights they are terrible. Charlotte should be a win. The odds of a 4-0 road trip are probably not much better than 50%, but in reality  this team probably will not be satisfied after these last two games with any thing less.

Portland has two days off before taking on the Bobcats in Charlotte on Friday.

Just a few quick thoughts:

• One of the knocks on Miami during their recent struggles is that they have the ability to build leads, but they can’t hold them. Tuesday Portland trailed for only three minutes in the second quarter. Miami can shake their heads and cry all they want about giving up games late, not knowing who to pass to on the final possession of a close games, and all the other things that have made headlines across the nation. None of that is relevant Tuesday night.
• Eight Blazers played basically 20 minutes or more. Patty Mills got a nice run in 15 and a half minutes. This is the rotation. Again, Gerald Wallace was not a starter, but in 34 and a half minutes, Crash scored 22 points and grabbed nine rebounds. The only Blazer that played more minutes than Wallace was LaMarcus Aldridge. Starter or no, Wallace has seemingly found his place with this team.
• Brandon Roy’s minute watch seems a little beside the point right now. He’s playing well and Portland is winning. More importantly, he’s not doing anything that is breaking the rhythm the Blazers have going. Roy played 23 minutes, scored 14 points, and hit all three of his tree-point attempts.
• Portland has won seven straight road games. Their best streak since 1991.

Box Score

Standings

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject

Ironically that’s exactly how Miami gets most of its wins with Dwayne Wade. You could say Portland beat them at their own game, if you wish.

Pretty much anything that didn’t go well against Orlando the night before went at least marginally well in this game. The Blazers shot 51 percent from the field, 11-of-19 beyond the arc, out-rebounded the Heat, dished a good-hardly-great 20 assists on 38 makes and got games out of LaMarcus Aldridge (23 points) and Martell Webster (15 points, three 3′s) that reminded us they were both still alive and had not had their power sucked out of them by space aliens.

That’s all the difference, regardless of the quality of opponent. Aldridge doesn’t score eight points in the second half of the third period and the Blazers don’t win. Webster doesn’t make a late triple to knot things up at 92, and the Blazers might not win. Without those things you lose to an Orlando team that didn’t always take Portland seriously, they lost. And back-and-forth and back-and-forth we go. I’m repeating myself for the effect of showing how dependent the Blazers are on their few remaining shooters and scorers, if you hadn’t noticed.

Let’s fast forward.

Individual Thoughts:

Roy found success both on and off the ball, both shooting (28 points on 14 shots, 5-of-5 from three) and passing (8 assists). Those are maestro numbers. Efficient, effective and deadly. He deserves all the praised that will be heaped on him tonight and tomorrow, but how rewarding that is we can’t know. It must be ever so slightly dampening for Roy, like Wade, to look down the road and realize just how many times he’ll have to do this for Portland to make the playoffs. Since Roy is not a commercial megastar like Wade or LeBron or Dwight, appreciation for him will always be in accordance with Portland’s win total, no matter how many fourth quarters he dominates. Call it the Paul Pierce zone.

I’m more interested in seeing what Aldridge does as a follow up to the follow up of a crappy game than I am in praising him for scoring 23 points on 23 shots. So sue me.

If you can get 15 points on 3-of-6 shooting from downtown out of Webster for every night the rest of the season, that’s a success. Throw in his five boards and in the future a few more defensive stats and you have yourself a starting small forward. I am starting to wonder whether McMillan just lacks trust in Webster’s defense, or if Roy is asking for the tougher defensive assignments.

Andre Miller was Portland’s best point guard tonight and didn’t really have any negative effect on the game. His occasional penetration into the paint balanced Roy’s offense well, even if the two still don’t always seem like they are playing with one another.

Joel Przybilla showed yet again why he is so valuable to this team, and why there’s virtually no chance he is going anywhere. He altered a large number of shots and benefited from the non-Wade members of the Heat putting little pressure on Portland’s guards, allowing him to roam and destroy.

Steve Blake played pretty good defense on the Carlos Arroyo/Mario Chalmers duet, staying in front and fighting through screens better than we’ve become accustomed to. His role on this team is beginning to get very blurry, but by no means did he hurt the Blazers. He just didn’t add much either.

Jerryd Bayless played a little less that he appeared to deserve, but he did get the quick yank in the fourth quarter for letting his man go backdoor on him. I continue to be impressed by how much he looks like a working cog in the offense rather than just a burst of energy that becomes the center of Portland’s solar system whenever he has the ball.

Here is where I mention Juwan Howard for doing how he do.

Anthony Tolliver got burned badly by Michael Beasley twice in one minute of play.

This team doesn’t need to find ways to win. There is still enough healthy talent to win simply by executing the same offense night in and night out. As a result, things are going to feel a little flat for the next month and change, even with Roy getting his Jack Ryan on, but there’s nothing wrong with that as long as wins come in at an acceptable clip. Nobody ever said we have to be dancing in the street after every single victory.

UPDATE: SJ here with the voting breakdown, via the NBA:

• LeBron James (1,172), Kobe Bryant (698), Dwyane Wade (680), Dwight Howard (328), Chris Paul (192), Chauncey Billups (33), Paul Pierce (21), Tony Parker (9), Brandon Roy (7), Dirk Nowtizki (3), Tim Duncan (2), Yao Ming (1)

Roy got next to no love with the 9th place finish. I still struggle with how he could finish behind Tony Parker. The Billups and Pierce things have become more tolerant over the past week. Without Billups, the Nuggets are in a Allen Iverson induced nightmare. And without Pierce, Boston isn’t anywhere close to where they are today. And you could say the same about Tony Parker..but…I guess the homer in me is speaking out. Other than that it was a runaway W for LeBron. Interestingly enough, D-Wade had more first place votes than Kobe but got smashed in second and third place votes.