As you’re about to see, 10 of those transition baskets occurred in the third quarter. The Blazers began that quarter down one and left it down 11. As we’ve discussed, the defense wasn’t nearly what it was the week prior against Dallas — a game which we’ll be using as a loose barometer for the defense required for meaningful postseason success. But upon second viewing, the half-court defense was better than I initially gave it credit for. The rotations were still stilted, but satisfactory to some degree (given the opponent).

Yes, the 52 paint points stick out, but if you remove the 17 Denver points off layups and dunks gained in transition sequences in the following video, that’s just 35 points in the middle. In other words, had the Blazers allowed fewer points off running plays, their overall defensive effort was very manageable — at least before we get into their 41 percent shooting. The following ten plays could not have all been classified as fast-breaks in the box score, but they all represent my definition of transition opportunities.

(Note: The off-center-ness of the video is what happens when you count on coffee to fix morning eyes.)

Assuming by now that you’ve slapped your forehead and thought about screaming the word “TURNOVERS” but didn’t because you’re at work and that’s frowned upon, you clearly would have had a point. The Blazers committed just 11 turnovers in the game, but five of them resulted in the easy buckets you see here, the giveaways ranging from poor ball handling to poor passing to Jerryd Bayless.

Those turnovers represent Portland’s issues in this game in their simplest form. Two more breaks were allowed by missed jumpers, which will happen sometimes especially from the corner three bouncing long. But another two breaks were made possible by missed layups. If you think about that for a second, other than the layup misser, four Blazers should be in position to get back on defense in the event of such a short missed shot. You can still get beat by a good outlet pass, but you can’t consistently be overwhelmed by numbers in those situations.

Not that the manner in which Portland handled the fast breaks was appalling. In only three of the plays did the Blazers get beat because of their own poor defensive rotations and recognition. Unfortunately, in three others we can mark at least one Portland player down for not going all out in chasing the play when they had a chance to alter the situation. In all, the Blazers had poor odds — 2-on-1′s or 3-on-1′s — on seven of the breaks, meaning that their actual defense of the plays wasn’t nearly as important in how their offense allowed the break to develop.

On the plus side, we can mark the Blazers down for full-on sprinting back twice, the more notable being Nic Batum (don’t act surprised) missing a corner three and being the only Blazer to sprint back and almost make a play on Carmelo Anthony’s layup.

In the grand scheme of things, are the problems shown in this game going to affect the Blazers in the playoffs? Yes and no. It’s not often that such a high percentage of your turnovers become high probability plays for the other team in the open court. The Blazers manage the second-lowest turnover percentage in the league (.121) with the fourth-highest offensive rebounding percentage (.284), a combination that not many teams are able to pull off and certainly not an indicator of larger problems. But while Portland allows the second fewest fast-break points per game (11.2), five of the Western Conference playoff teams — minus the Lakers and San Antonio — are in the top eleven in transition scoring while being arguably better at running than some of the loosey-goosey teams above them due to better efficiency.

It all boils down to there being plenty of teams that will destroy the Blazers if you are giving up the ball in the backcourt and not sending anyone back on shots. The Blazers are capable of playing better defense, but if their offense is putting the D at a heavy disadvantage 10 possessions a game, then they will need star games from Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge offensively to make up for it. Against Denver, that didn’t happen.

It's like there should be hands in my way, but there aren't. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

I don’t know about you, but I’m OK with this. In the bigger picture, that is. We don’t know what the consequences of a win or a loss were going to be two weeks from now in the playoff scene, so it’s hard to be overly concerned with one loss now that the playoff spot is locked up. Heck, if losing tonight meant avoiding Utah in the first round, then lose away.

After four-straight wins and 10 of the last 11, it seemed as though many people had their postseason hopes riding high. On paper, this was a little silly, as even when we were talking about Dallas being a preferred matchup, that still meant the Blazers having a 35 percent chance to advance versus below 4-1 odds. The single largest confirmation of these heightened hopes, however, was the swarming defensive effort against Dallas last week. If the Blazers could play defense like that, we could seriously talk about making a decent run.

Problem was, we’ve seen so little of that caliber defense that nobody could predict it would carryover through the final games of the year. It sure didn’t tonight.

While that Mavericks victory showcased not only all five guys on the floor covering for one another, the Blazers displayed a defensive confidence that each guy would be there when they needed to be. They took risks in the passing lanes, and if those didn’t work out, they recognized and sprinted to the open man. It was beautiful to watch. None of that happened in Denver. Other than some occasionally splendid help rotations from LaMarcus Aldridge and the usual (but less frequent than usual) Marcus Camby awareness, most players were left out at sea, treading water before they were dragged under by the Melo-Billups-Nene Kraken.

(As a sidenote, very little drives me up a wall like TNT continually referring to Portland as a good defensive group, one whose offense is slowly catching up. Please, write letters begging for pace-adjusted statistics and for networks to actually assume we all have semi-functional brains for once. I can’t honestly believe Doug Collins believes what he says half the time unless he’s completely thrown in the towel.)

Watching Portland allow 52 points in the paint felt like a game in early January when the team had no idea how to stop anyone without a big body in the middle to catch them whenever they fell and scraped a knee. The Blazers allowed a number of Nene dunks early on due to the lack of secondary help when Camby slid over, and then they overcompensated for a while in the second half by clogging the lane and conceding a step or two when closing out on shooters. It was as if they came into the game knowing they were going to get somewhere. That’s not a winning philosophy. It’s impossible to shut down every area of the floor for 48 minutes, but even if you’re playing the 1996 Bulls, you prepare to force your opponent into the absolute worse possible shots and shot locations, and then to contest that shot and finish the possession.

Still, the Blazers were in this until about midway through the third period, at which point a five-point deficit slowly became the rope in gym class for the growth-spurt kid that hasn’t had time to develop any upper-body strength.

They could have stolen the game, too, and left us all writing “Hey, we’ll take it” had the offense not joined the defensive philosophy in Davy Jones’ Locker. Eleven turnovers to go with 18 assists on 33 field goals aren’t criminal numbers, but they only managed about a point per possession — that’s New Jersey Nets territory — against a team missing it’s best defender. Too much isolation offense left Brandon Roy (3-of-13) with the attention of three defenders and nowhere to go. Andre Miller and Marcus Camby — 23 combined points in the first half — made up for it for a time, with Miller especially taking the load on his shoulders, but once he predictably tailed off Roy was left in the same position as before.

Portland did a reasonable job keeping Aldridge involved on offense, and LaMarcus was quite good defensively even without the four blocks, but where again were the peripheral players? You can excuse Nic Batum for shooting 0-of-4 because of the rather strenuous Carmelo Anthony duties he held, but Rudy Fernandez and Jerryd Bayless were again non-entities. Martell Webster shot the ball OK, going 6-of-9 for 17 points with a display that was less impressive than it looks, but he continues to be an awkward wreck when asked (or he just does) to do anything other than shoot. Answer me this: right now, is there really that much of a difference between Webster and Rudy?

Again, in the playoff picture, this game wasn’t a big deal, but it remains a strong indicator of issues that should keep you tempering your postseason expectations. And we can talk about the bench or the ball movement all we want, but everything comes back to how this team plays defense. They play like they did against Dallas and you’re talking about a solid series and a chance to move on. They play like they did tonight and we’re all writing “Well done to at least make the playoffs, fellas” really soon.

Ok, so win, lose or draw this still won’t be the end of the world, but you can’t argue that there is some significance to tonight’s contest. It’s the Nuggets and Blazers. Some believe it’s a rivalry, I still think it’s in between. Either way the Nugs are the Blazers main competition in the Northwest Division. Both teams shared the division title as co-champions…although honestly, since we lost the tie-breaker doesn’t that mean we weren’t really division champs *ducks*. Anyways, it’s the Nuggets, in the Rose Garden, in front of a national TV audience on TNT. Doesn’t get much moer fun than that. If we learned anything from last year, it’s that every game against Denver is going to count. When we really have to start looking at tie-breakers in the spring, this game is going to count big. Also,  we need to win games against Northwest Division opponents if we want to be the sole Northwest Division champions (and the higher seed that brings).

(And yes I’m still bitter. Thanks Oklahoma City.)

This game is also significant because it’s the Blazers first true ‘test’. No offense to the Rockets but they are still a work in progress. And while the tested the Blazers toughness and ability to finish off an opponent, the cupboard was pretty bare in a few ways. Bless Chuck Hayes heart but not a lot of size offensively and not a lot of creativity offensively. Denver is seemingly the exact opposite. You don’t put 114 on a Sloan-coached team without having something in the tank. Prior to last night I had talked the Nuggets down. I had convinced myself that last year was their ‘perfect storm’ and that it couldn’t get much better. ‘No way they get that kind of production from Nene, Andersen, JR Smith and co. and they didn’t add anything’. And then I saw George Karl’s interview where he said ‘We added Nene as an All-Star, Melo as an MVP candidate and that kid from North Carolina is gonna play’. And then I saw the Nuggets go to work last night, without JR Smith on the floor or Linas Kleiza in the country. And then I gulped.

This Denver team isn’t much different than the Denver team we saw last year. Technically they didn’t add much except for Ty Lawson, but they do have the advantage of having played together for a whole year. Arron Afflalo looks to be playing the role of Dahntay Jones this year. While Lawson is just a human sparkplug. Their disadvantage looks to be their depth. Joey Graham, Malik Allen and Renaldo Balkman do not strike fear into my heart. Also, while they played great last night, losing the offensive punch of JR Smith has to take its toll. The rest of the gang is all there and you know what you’re getting. Two superstars looking to relentlessly attack (Chauncey, Carmelo). You’re going to get a tough, physical frontline who defends the paint well and rebounds (K-Mart, Nene, Birdman). Role players (Anthony Carter, Afflalo) and an intriguing X-Factor (Lawson). Nothing is going to be easy tonight.

I like that the Blazers have to go up against Denver in the second game of the season. It’s a great early season test to see what we really have on both ends. Denver can be explosive offensively so we’ll see how the defense holds up. Denver just plays so hard and so physical, I’m interested to see how Portland reacts. In the past the Nuggets have given us fits. It’ll be interesting to see if Portland is in attack mode or settling for jumpers. To see if that same offensive balance that was around on Tuesday against Houston, is around tonight. Remember last year, the Nuggets were one of the first teams to expose to the world how dependent we can be on Brandon Roy. We’ve made moves and have depth to counteract that, we’ll see if it happens tonight.

Keys to the Game

• Energy from the start. Home teams have to like playing a team that’s coming into the back end of a back to back. The Nuggets played a chippy contest against the Jazz last night, one that was back and forth until a fourth quarter run. Then they took a snowy flight to Portland. The Blazers have a chance to jump on them early but it’s going to take a lot of energy and effort. They are talent but they are not very deep. Make Graham, Balkman, Allen or Lawson play a large amount of minutes.

• Limit the turnovers. I’m not sure how we got away with turning the ball over 26 times Tuesday and winning comfortably, but that won’t happen tonight. If we turn it over 20+ times tonight we will get blown out. Case closed. We don’t have the luxury of having that many possessions go to waste against such a good team.

• Rebound, rebound, rebound. Oden/LMA/Joel vs. Nene/K-Mart/Birdman is going to be a battle royale in the paint tonight. If the Blazers can win the rebound advantage, good things should happen. If they get out-physical-ed and out-toughed, we can’t be too pleased with the results. The Blazer frontline has to send a message tonight. And I’m mainly staring a hole through you Mr. Aldridge. You get paid the big bucks now, so get some boards.

• Be aggressive, b-e aggressive. Denver loves to play physical. Portland is going to have to match that for 48 minutes. That means attacking the basket instead of settling for jumpers. That means getting to the free throw line, protecting the paint, all of that.

• Keep Steve Blake as far away from Ty Lawson as possible. Seriously. I don’t want to see Blake guard Lawson at all. Especially since he tweeted about ‘wanting to go at teams neck’ who didn’t draft him.

• Win the battle of the second units. On paper our bench is better than their bench, with ease. Dominate this area. Miller, Fernandez and Outlaw have to continue to be game changers.

• Contain Carmelo and Chauncey. This is obvious. If we can contain one of these two we’ve got a great chance. The Nuggets are without JR Smith so they don’t really have a third scoring option on the perimeter, unless Ty Lawson goes off again. Carmelo scares me because I’m not sure who we have that can guard him. I’m interested to see Chauncey vs. Andre Miller. Why? Isn’t this one of the reasons we signed Miller? To go against the bigger (and better) PG’s in the West.