LaMarcus Aldridge lead the Blazers over defending the NBA Champions the Los Angeles Lakers, moving Portland one step closer to locking up the sixth seed in the Western Conference. Photo courtesy of the Oregonian.

There is almost no doubt that what is going to be said by the Lakers, and those around the team, following their mostly blow-out loss to the once again hot Portland Trail Blazers will be in the vein of, “this game didn’t matter,” or more likely, “they needed this one more than we did.” Don’t buy it Blazer fans. This LA team was the hottest in the league following the All-Star break, and the talk among those that get paid to talk was that there was a pretty good chance that the Lakers were going to catch the San Antonio Spurs, and make themselves the number one seed in the Western Conference.

A three, now four, game losing streak later, and LA is the number two, and can do no better. Portland is the six, with a chance to fall to the seven with a loss. Falling to seven means a first round date with these same Lakers. One more loss in 2010-11 to the Lakers, and it would have been a clean sweep of Portland by LA on the season. Now tell me that getting a chance to play a team in the first round of the Playoffs that you’ve beaten every time you’ve met this season isn’t something to fight for. Sure, before the game there were whispers that for whatever reason the Lakers wanted to avoid the Blazers just as much as the Blazers wanted no part of LA. Speculation being speculation, some were even hinting that the Lakers might go so far as to take a dive Friday night, all but ensuring Portland will face Dallas in the first round. That makes no sense to me, seeing as the Lakers out seven-footer the Blazers three to one, and guessing by the way LA played down the stretch, that logic made no sense to them either.

I’ve said all that to say this. Portland beating LA on Friday mattered both to the Blazers and the Lakers. And although it wasn’t start to finish the best game of the season, it might just go down as one of the marquee wins, and one of the crowning achievements of this team in this season.

How did Portland beat the team that will most likely be the favorite of all the pundits when the Playoffs start? Well, first of all the Lakers played a little uninspired, a little loose down the stretch, and spent too much time picking fights, throwing elbows, and watching Kobe. All negative indicators for that team’s Playoff run, but all little things that Portland took advantage of.

As important, or more important depending on how you feel, as the poor play of the Lakers was the early execution of the Blazers. Yes Portland flagged at the end of the game and at the end of the first half, and that should cause fans to worry some and I’ll get to it shortly, but for the most part, when the Blazers were executing their game plan they controlled the game, and controlled the Lakers. That game plan was unique, showing that maybe this team does have a few wrinkles yet; run. Run, run, and run. For 79 games Portland has not been a fast break team. For one game they were. The Blazers outscored the Lakers on the fast break 20 to 6. When you’re outsized the way Portland was Friday night, Marcus Camby was held out for the second straight game due to a lingering neck/back injury, the way to counteract the mismatches underneath is to make the big guys run. The Blazers had Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol running from end-to-end, and when Portland had their biggest lead of the night they did it all on the fast break.

Who knows if the Blazers will turn into a fast break team for this Playoff run, but when you’ve got a guy that handles the ball in the open court like Andre Miller, and guys that can run the floor like Gerald Wallace, Nicolas Batum, and LaMarcus Aldridge, I don’t see a single reason why this team couldn’t adopt a “seven seconds or less” style. Or maybe a more conservative, Nate McMillan-esque “10 to 12 seconds or less” style.

I’ll use that to segue to the other main reason the Blazers were victorious on Friday; the play of the starting five. All five Blazer starters scored at least 12 points. Miller, Wallace, and Batum were phenomenal in the open court. LaMarcus got as many lob dunks as he possibly could. And Wesley Matthews came up with his share of big buckets. This group can play with any starting five in the league, and can beat most. Add Marcus Camby back to the mix, sending Batum back to the sixth man role, and Western Conference Playoff teams have every reason to be scared.

Among this group, Gerald Wallace once again emerged as Portland’s best all-around threat. Crash was all over the place, a few times even up in the face of notorious crazy person Ron Artest, and had a magnificent stat line. Wallace finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds, and seven assists, made it clear to everybody that he spoke for the team when he said post game that he wasn’t afraid of the Lakers, and was treated to a “Gerald Wallace” cheer. There’s no doubt that this guy wants to win a Playoff series for this Blazer team.

Andre Miller and LaMarcus Aldridge both had fantastic nights. Dre almost had more assists than the entire LA roster, 13 for Andre 14 for Los Angeles, and LaMarcus matched the offense output of Kobe Bryant with 24 points, leading the team.Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum hit big threes late, and added buckets to extend runs and end dry spells. Matthews finished with 18 points, Nic with 13, providing the offense in the game’s closing minutes that stopped LA’s final run.

So, like I said, the starters were good. Unfortunately, the bench for Portland was not good. Rudy Fernandez, Brandon Roy, Patty Mills, and Chris Johnson finished with seven points between the four of them, hitting 3-of-15 from the field. Rudy and Patty were not just off, a combined 1-of-8 and 0-of-5 from deep. Brandon was a little better. He knocked down a three, and hit a jumper. More importantly, he played nearly 30 minutes and didn’t turn the ball over a single time. The second unit was almost Portland’s Kryptonite. The Blazer offense had absolutely no punch when the lineup was Roy, Fernandez, Mills, Johnson, and Batum or Aldridge. If the Lakers had stolen Friday’s game, it would have happened when this unit was on the floor. Case in point, every Portland starter had a +\- of positive double figures. Patty and Rudy were both minus double digits, Johnson was -8, Roy was an even zero. Bringing Camby back and having Nic be the first man off the bench might change the offensive nature of the second unit, but this team has to get better, and more consistent production off the bench. That’s going to have to start with Rudy snapping out of his current funk. The last few games he’s looked very bad; Friday he seemed to have no confidence in his stroke, attempting only two shots in 15 and a half minutes. The Blazers need to get more than that out of Rudy.

Overall, though, most of what can be taken away from Friday’s game is positive, very positive. Portland took some shots from the champs, including a crazy stretch at the end of the first half when it seemed like Kobe couldn’t miss from beyond the three-point line, and they didn’t fold. Not only that, they might have played themselves into a favorable Playoff position. New Orleans has Memphis, Utah, and Dallas left. If they lose more than one of those games, the Blazers should have a solid lock on the sixth seed. Portland still has Golden State in the Bay, and Memphis in the RG before that though. The best way to get Dallas, easily the ideal match up for the Blazers all things considered, is to keep winning. The best way to get a winning streak going is beat the Lakers. So far, mission accomplished.

Portland’s final home game is next Tuesday against the Grizzlies.

Just a few things:

• The Memphis Grizzlies clinched the final Playoff spot in the West with a victory Friday night over the Sacramento Kings. Memphis is in the Playoffs for the first time since the end of the Pau Gasol era. Having clinched a Playoff birth, Tuesday’s game will not be as important as it otherwise might have been, but expect it to be a good prelude to the Playoffs. These seeds have still not been decided.
• Ron Artest did basically everything he could to incite Gerald Wallace late in Friday’s fourth quarter. Artest is of course not sane. I can only imagine what kind of antics he’ll get up to should Portland and LA end up meeting in the first round of the Playoffs. I would take Crash over Artest in a fist fight, but for pure ability to turn psychotic behavior into big time play, there is nobody quite like Artest. Ron Ron was not good from the field until the game’s last few minutes. At which point, following his few tussles with Wallace, Ron nailed back-to-back threes, and put the Lakers well within striking distance with plenty of time remaining on the clock for Portland to choke. The Blazers avoided yet another collapse to the Lakers, but just imagine how jacked up Artest will get once the Playoffs start. For everybody’s sake, you hope which ever player Ron decides to try and goad in the Playoffs can hold their ground like Wallace did Friday night. Artest can rattle a player better than anyone, and never ever seems to get rattled himself. Probably because he knows just exactly how crazy he is.
• I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a +/- of 0, like Brandon Roy had Friday night. Sure the +/- is dubious at best, but hitting that zero mark might be just what Brandon should go for. He’s not the go-to guy anymore, at least not for right now, but he also isn’t doing anything to derail the team.
• Greg Oden was featured momentarily on Friday’s TV broadcast. GO is not the most outgoing individual when it comes to talking on camera, especially since he’s been relegated to the background all season, and his interview was of course not very sunny. Greg mentioned the possibility of it being five months before he could do basketball stuff again. That’s a long time, longer than the off season, and it isn’t what anybody wants to hear. What’s good to hear, and to see, is that Greg is taking a long view. The team has said that he’s part of the future plans, as he probably should be. No doubt it will help him mentally to think about coming back as being a process, with many steps that need to be completed, so that when he does step back on the court, which he will, we’ll get a season’s worth of games, or two or three or four season’s worth of games, out of him.

Brandon Roy was an uneasy mediator between Gerald Wallace and Ron Artest Friday night. Can you blame him? Photo courtesy of the Oregonian.

Box Score

Standings

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject

Now look at how the Lakers played in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Now back to the Blazers.

Now back to how the Lakers played in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Sadly, the Blazers have not yet played like the Lakers did in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. But they could, if they were to grab 23 offensive rebounds and win one of the most grueling basketball games I’ve seen in a decade, despite shooting 32.5 percent from the field.

It’s a remarkable achievement, what the Lakers did. They could barely move the ball because the Boston Celtics were swarming them so, and when they could get a shot, they couldn’t shoot. But they just kept playing and moving, in exactly the same style of game which defeated them so thoroughly two seasons ago. Ron Artest moved off the ball for easy buckets, Kobe Bryant grabbed 15 rebounds, Pau Gasol delivered late in in the post with Kevin Garnett dogging him the entire way and they won a well-earned win.

We’re talking about the Lakers and not the Celtics because the Blazers aren’t and can’t be the Celtics. They could, someday, play as effective defense as them, but it will not be the same because they won’t have an intensely destructive like Kevin Garnett. He gave that team an identity and the Blazers just don’t have anyone with his unique brain type to duplicate it.

No, the Blazers are close to the Lakers blueprint. They’ve got the star perimeter scorer, the maligned power forward, the young injured center and a do-it-all forward. They lack the bulldog, again, in not having Artest, but the familiar pieces are there. It’s just that the Lakers’ pieces fought in a way the Portland puzzle has yet to do.

Perhaps they’ll never have to either. Perhaps that Boston team was so unique, it’s brand of basketball bringing out something different in the Lakers — the second time around — that the Blazers will never be tested in quite the same way. But in watching that contest, if you were being honest, you saw mental heights that Portland will have to reach. It’s been so long since Brandon Roy has been healthy that you might find it hard to imagine him handling such rough defense and still coming out with 15 rebounds, but he probably can. It’s been so long since Oden has been healthy that it’s tough to see him gutting out a series like Andrew Bynum did, but Oden can be even better than that. And Nic Batum can offer much of what Artest and Odom do.

But the difference last night was Pau Gasol, and you hope LaMarcus Aldridge was watching. The relentless work on the glass, the following up of ugly, weak-looking misses with ugly, strong-looking makes. The fights Gasol made just to get position, and then to earn his way into the paint. Those are things Aldridge needs to do, and can do, just as Gasol folded two years ago and improved, mentally, after it.

Then there’s a team. Despite positional weaknesses and a weak bench outside of Odom, you don’t win a game like that without being collectively strong. And that comes back to the accountability and leadership we’ve talked about so often here during the offseason. Without consistent scoring, the Lakers still had consistent workers. Guys working to get position, to get the opponent a bad shot, to put a hand up in the passing lane and to just run the wing, even behind the break, to provide a threat, to make things a decimal easier for his teammates.

And in the end, they won by using their advantage: size. They trusted their size, and their size rewarded them. The Blazers have the same size to utilize, but as we said with Aldridge’s Summer Reading, it won’t be enough for the team to run through sets just because they were called by the coach. They’ll have to believe that if they want to have a chance at a title, they have to work the ball inside, which leads to individual instincts, and not just “Doing your job” instincts.

It doesn’t have to be the same as the Lakers. But the Blazers had an example set for them in Game 7 of what it takes. And while the path will be different, they have the internal tools to make the results the same.

This is far from the end of the world people. First off, there is a ton of off-season left. A ton. Granted, by throwing all of our attention towards Hedo and not getting him we’ve lost out on every other possible good free agent in this class. We’re kind of like the guy at a bar that spent all night spitting game to a girl, things look promising and right around 1 AM he goes to the bathroom, comes back and she’s gone. The departures of Artest, Turkoglu, Ariza and Jason Kidd have made free agency about as attractive as Lindsay Lohan will be if she makes it to 40. But, since when is free agency the only way you can make a move? And last I checked, isn’t this free agent class trash? I’d love Kidd but it’s ok to lose out on him since the Knicks and Mavs are determined to overpay. Ariza? Too similar to Batum to want to overpay for that. Plus he’s not really a creator and when you have 3 SF’s who combined can bring all of what Ariza does to the table, I’m ok with passing on him. As great of a fit as Hedo would have been as another playmaker to take pressure off of Roy and help out Oden, we still have a lot of talent at the 3 position. Travis Outlaw, Martell Webster and Nic Batum..not too shabby if you ask me. Also, check out why Henry Abbott had to say earlier:

“As for the Blazers? Well, no one likes wasting all that time almost getting a deal done. But there are worse thing than being back on the market, with nearly $9 million a year to spend.”

Bingo. I mean we might as well be Bradley Cooper walking into a nightclub with thousands of dollars hanging out of his pants. Ok, maybe not that much but you get the point. Also, by losing Hedo, Portland can now concentrate on fixing the two areas that we all know need help: the PG and the PF. Remember that cap space means we can make a lopsided trade with ease. I’m just praying said trade is not for Andre Miller.

I’m not going to villify Hedo Turkoglu for doing what he felt was right for himself and his family. I’ll never do that. If he didn’t like the city or something didn’t feel right then I’m fine with him backing out now instead of pouting through his contract. I just admit I can’t understand what he’s thinking and more importantly what the Raptors are thinking. I mean you leave Orlando after a trip to the Finals, almost go to a team who needs you to get to that next level, and instead go to the Raptors? And not only that, but Toronto gives him all of their cap space?? No flexibility, I barely think they can sign Pops Mensah-Bonsu anymore. Right now their roster is looking like Chris Bosh, Jose Calderson, Hedo Turkoglu, Bargnani, DeRozan and then the fall off is incredible. We’re talking Marcus Banks, Reggie Evans, Kris Humphries, Patrick O’Bryant, Roko Ukic, Quincy Douby, Nathan Jawai type incredible. It doesn’t make them that much better and if (and when) Bosh bolts they will be screwed in every single way. No one can tell me that team can win more than 30 games.

Last thing, Shawn Marion’s name is not to be spoken. Absolutely not. No.