Mike Conley will probably give Damian Lillard headaches on both offense and defense Friday night in Memphis. Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

The Memphis Grizzlies are the kind of team that in 2012-13 should drive long-term Blazer fans absolutely insane. Their rise exactly mirrors Portland’s fall, which in and of itself isn’t maddening. But add where Memphis was when Portland was on their recent rise to the disparity between these teams that now exists, and then you have the kind of thing that keeps Blazer die-hards tossing and turning in their beds at night.

Let’s review: Last season the Grizzlies finished 41-25 and were nominally upset by the LA Clippers in a pretty epic first round Playoff series; Portland spun out of control, fell apart, and ended up in the lottery. In 2010-11 Portland recorded 48 wins and 34 losses, and made the Playoffs for the final time in the Nate McMillan era, falling to the eventual Champion Dallas Mavericks; the Grizzlies finished 46-38, grabbed the eighth seed, and finished one game shy of the Western Conference Finals.

Although their Playoff finish was better in 2010-11 than in 2011-12, the Grizzlies were coming in as the Blazers were going out, that much we can all probably remember.

But do you remember this. 2006-07 Portland 32-50 Memphis 22-60. 2007-2008 Portland 41-41 Memphis 22-60. 2008-09 Portland 54-28 Memphis 24-48.

While the Blazers were rising from the basement of the Western Conference, the Grizzlies were languishing in the Draft Lottery. The sea change began in 2009-10. That season, Portland’s win total dipped for the first time in five seasons while Memphis jumped from 24 to 40 wins and basically announced that they were coming to play.

Portland fans should be frustrated by this because there was a time not so long ago when playing the Grizzlies was a good thing for a team needing a win. That time is not only over, if the Blazers should find a way to get a win in Memphis Friday evening, it will certainly be considered an upset.

If Portland hadn’t done themselves a disservice by beating the Knicks in Madison Square Garden to start this current trip (this will be the last time I talk about that win I swear), winning on the road against one of the top four teams in the Western Conference would easily be on the short list of biggest wins of the season.

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

Grizzlies Starting 5: PG Mike Conley, SG Tony Allen, SF Rudy Gay, PF Zach Randolph, C Marc Gasol

Can Portland beat the Memphis Grizzlies? Yes, of course they can. Any NBA team can beat any other NBA team on any night of the week. If you don’t believe that to be the undeniable truth, then you haven’t spent much time watching the NBA.

Will the Blazers beat the Grizzlies Friday night in Memphis? Well, that’s a very different question. Memphis is coming off a big win against the Celtics in Boston. We just saw Portland forget to show up for a game they could probably have won after winning a game they should have lost. Applying the transitive property of mathematics, Portland wins big road game then loses to an inferior opponent, Memphis wins big road game therefore they too must then lose to an inferior opponent.

There are some significant differences, of course, between what can be expected from the Grizzlies at home against Portland and what we basically knew was going to happen with the Blazers on the road in Toronto. Memphis wins big games. They’re one of the best teams in the West, top five in the league. A decent Playoff position, and the Grizzlies could take a serious shot at the Finals (that is if they don’t have to face the Clips until the Conference Finals).

Portland on the other hand, hasn’t beaten many good teams, they’re young, they (rightly so) have little to no expectations beyond competing and growing through 82 regular season games. They can be forgiven for taking a game off after winning at MSG (sorry that’s the last time I’ll bring it up). In fact, as I said previewing and recapping their loss in Canada, we should have expected it.

Should we also expect Portland to be checked out in Memphis? No. Will that change the outcome of Friday’s game? Probably not.

Memphis is the kind of team Portland matches up with just well enough to hang. But they simply do not have the depth needed to beat a Grizzlies team that is on their game. If the Blazers want to get their second win on this road trip, their margin for error is tiny. Turnovers, bad shots, poor defensive rotations, missed free throws, any combination of those things above and beyond what can be considered within the realm of normal, and Portland ends up on the wrong side of a blowout.

What to Watch For

• Zach Randolph versus LaMarcus Aldridge. The Oregonian‘s Jason Quick took a long look at this match-up the other day. LA probably circled this game on his calendar prior to the start of the season. Z-Bo is, for my money, one of the very best power forwards in the game. He’s also one of the most difficult guys in the league to game plan for or to stop. Z-Bo’s a match-up nightmare because he knows what he’s good at and sticks almost exclusively to doing it. The best way to beat Zach Randolph is to hope he beats himself, which he barely does at all anymore. LaMarcus can and usually does get the better of Z-Bo. They are very similar types of players, with LA getting an important edge in the athleticism category. LaMarcus has been on a shooting tear as of late. If he wants to cement what I think is a deserved second straight trip to the All-Star Game, putting up big numbers against Randolph is very important.
• Damian Lillard. I mentioned in a post game wrap up last week (I think) that I can sense an advanced statistics backlash against Dame brewing. This will come in part because some Internet writers hate to agree with mainstream writers/talking heads/ex-players who they believe don’t understand the minutiae of basketball in the same nuanced way they do. It will also come because Lillard’s advanced stats (notably his stats on the defensive end) aren’t as great as some of his co-rookies, and some people will undoubtedly point out that Dame is getting a lot of notice because he’s a much more important piece of the Blazers than say Andre Drummond is of the Pistons and not because his PER and Offensive Rebound Efficiency Rate (I think I made that one up) are off the charts. Even if it may sound like it, I’m not anti advanced statistics. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m not a stat guy in any sense of the word. I understand Damian’s negatives. I also understand (at least somewhat) what numbers can and cannot say about the impact a player has on his team or where they fit within the frame work of the NBA writ large. All that is a long lead-in to my saying that Damian Lillard might have his hands full defending Mike Conely and will likely be aggressively defended by everybody in a Memphis jersey. Damian has already shown that he struggles against tough, ball-denial, get up in your face defense, the kind of defense that makes Tony Allen more famous for his basketball than for his Twitter. Dame is also not a phenomenal defender, and Mike Conley is becoming a lethal offensive weapon. A big game against the Grizzlies could be big for Dame.
• The battle of the benches. Portland’s bench we know. The Grizzlies bench consists of Darrell Arthur, Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington, Jerryd Bayless, Tony Wroten, and Hamed Haddadi. It’s not the Clippers’ bench. But on a good night, it can destory the Blazers’ bench. Keeping Wayne Ellington and Darrell Arthur from getting hot from deep will be important, as will keeping Marreese Speights out of the lane and off the glass. Luckily for Portland, the bench match-ups tend to lean toward more minutes for Joel Freeland. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Joel Freeland needs to play.

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

Nicolas Batum was a key to a big Blazer win, as they continue to be not so good at tanking. Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-US PRESSWIRE

Somewhere in the early going of Portland’s inspiring, and at moments even inspired, win over the Memphis Grizzlies Thursday night the worst team in the Western Conference, the New Orleans Hornets, defeated the possible contender Los Angeles Clippers.

A spirited Twitter explosion followed. Many topics were discussed. For instance, is Vinny Del Negro about to join Nate McMillan as a former NBA head coach, is Nate McMillan a good fit for Vinny Del Negro’s job, would it be weird to be replaced as head coach by a former college teammate (Vinny Del Negro and Nate McMillan again), is there anybody else besides Nate McMillan that the Clippers should be looking at when they finally decide to tell Vinny to get up and get gone?

Also, one topic that got a fair amount of play was, shouldn’t New Orleans be trying to lose games, since losing games is the best way to ensure the top pick in the Draft (or at least the second pick, the Bobcats have all but locked up the worst record in the league, although there’s no guarantee that that means they’ll get that number one ping-pong ball)?

The simple answer to that question is yes, New Orleans should be trying to lose games. They have nothing to play for this season, they’re looking at a deep draft, and they need to find a franchise player in that draft. The question is, though, how does a team go about trying to lose games, and is it even possible to lose games on purpose.

There are two parts to why I think intentionally losing games is a difficult task to pull off, and why, in reality, it’s not something any team should be doing. First, telling professional basketball players to go out and try their hardest not to win sounds a bit like point shaving, has probably never ever happened (expect maybe during a point shaving scheme), and if it did happen it probably wouldn’t work. Professional basketball players want to win. When they’re on the court they will do whatever they can to get a victory. It is against their nature to try to lose, even if somebody asks them very nicely.

Which brings me to my second point. The only way to lose on purpose would be to start and play only bench players. It doesn’t have to be the kind of thing where you bench all your good players, just say they’re hurt or something. The Blazers held Jamal Crawford out of that embarrassing loss at Madison Square Garden because they thought he was going to be traded, then when he didn’t get shipped blithely said he sat out because of tendonitis (they did acknowledge that it was also related to trade scenarios but still) that had not been reported before and hasn’t been brought up at all since. Just scratch two or three of your best guys every night, and then you’ll lose for sure.

So why does that not work? Because eventually people would stop showing up. Say what you will about how important winning games and championships and stuff like that is, in the NBA the number one thing on the list of things that matter is getting people in the door. SELLING THE PRODUCT. People come to see star players. They don’t play; people don’t come. Simple as that.

Why am I saying all this stuff? Because right now I’m sure there are some Blazer fans that are wondering how to feel about Portland’s solid win over one of the better Playoff teams in the Western Conference. Is it OK to be excited because the Blazers got a win, showed a little bit of fight, and looked, for the first time in the last three games, like a team that is willing to do what it takes to win a basketball game (I almost said basketball games, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here)? Or should we be upset because a victory, any victory, drops Portland further from that magic place where the team has two top-10 picks in a loaded draft?

Here’s my contention: be happy with the win. Here’s why: Portland is probably not going to get enough wins down the stretch to fight for a Playoff spot, but they’re just not going to be able to lose enough to get into a top-10 draft position with their own pick. It would take a colossal tank job to end up in a worse spot than two of the three teams trailing the Blazers in the Western Conference, not to mention there are six teams in the East with fewer than 20 wins. In fact, Portland has more wins than all the non-Playoff teams in the Eastern Conference.

We want this team to end up with two high picks, but in reality they’ll probably end up with one very good pick (from New Jersey somewhere below three but higher than 10) and one still pretty good pick (lower than ten but still in that neighborhood). So if the ultimate result to the 2011-12 season is the same whether the rest of the games are wins or losses, why not hope for wins?

OK, now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I have to say about Thursday. Portland played well. Not amazingly well, but decently well. Memphis is a bit of a loose team, and they made some costly mistakes at the end of this one. They also missed some free throws. The Blazers hit nine more free throws than the Grizz. They won by four. The math on that one isn’t hard.

The best thing I saw Thursday night was the play of Nicolas Batum. That best thing carried over into the locker room as well, where he talked about trying harder to become the go-to guy. That’s what this team needs from Nic. He will be a Blazer next year (I say that with 90% confidence but anything is possible). He has to know that when this team puts it back together in the off season, he is going to be a HUGE part of it. He still needs to improve the parts of his game that don’t include spot-up shooting, but it’s getting there.

He still doesn’t attack the basket with a defender on his hip all that well, but I think a lot of that comes with confidence. He grew up (in the NBA sense) watching Brandon Roy, a finesse finisher if there ever was one, but he should really try to emulate Kevin Durant. KD goes over people. Nicolas doesn’t have the total explosion that Durant has, but he has enough. Plus, when you get a reputation for being a hard finisher at the hole, you start getting calls.

So Portland gets a nice win, the Rose Garden gets to celebrate a bit, and head coach Kaleb Canales gets to breath a little easier because he’s got both a first road win and now a first home win. What looms is a match-up with the Lakers, a team that was supposed to fall way off this year, that hasn’t played well on the road, and has lost some big games at home but is somehow first in the Pacific Division and sitting all by themselves in the 3rd spot in the Western Conference.

The last time Portland played in the Staples Center they put up seven freaking points in the first quarter. That was the first real indication that this Blazer team had more wrong with it than a simple pep talk was going to cure. Portland has a chance at redemption, Friday night (albeit a slim one at best). The good thing is, all we as fans expect from this team anymore is effort. That, and a loss gives the Blazers .01% more of a chance at landing (blue chipper’s name) from (top 10 NCAA program). So really, it’s a win-win.

Couple of quick things:

• It sounds weird to say this, but I thought Jonny Flynn had a nice game. I know he only played like four minutes (3:49 to be exact), but I liked his pace and he moved the ball pretty nicely. I’m sure he would have turned it over a bunch if he’d stayed in any longer, but I was pleasantly surprised during the moments that he was on the court.
• J.J. Hickson didn’t play at all. Check out his interview with Blazersedge if you haven’t already.
• Raymond Felton finished with nine assists and zero turnovers.
• Tony Allen grabbed me while running through the tunnel out to the court at the end of halftime. It wasn’t as scary as you might think.
• The appearance of Gilbert Arenas made me think of his back court partner at Arizona, Jason Gardner. Gardner was an outstanding college player but never cracked the NBA, one of many such guys to come out of that school who face similar fates. A friend of mine and I got into a little Twitter riff down on the topic of Arizona Wildcats who killed in college but did nothing in the NBA. He ended it with this gem. In case you don’t remember, Loren Woods set a Pac-10 record when he blocked 14 shots in a game against the Oregon Ducks in 2000. He was drafted in 2001 by the Minnesota Timberwolves, played for the Heat and Raptors before dropping to the D-League Austin Toros in 2007, and currently plays for Zob Ahan Isfahan BC in Iran. Gardner is an assistant coach with Loyola University Chicago. According to Wikipedia, Miles Simon sells real estate part time in Las Vegas.
• Brandon Roy DID NOT show up.

Box Score

Standings

Email me: mike.acker1@gmail.com

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject

Tony Allen is kind of a crazy dude. Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-US PRESSWIRE

Marcus Camby set season highs in rebounds and blocks in Portland's win over Memphis. Photo courtesy of the AP.

It seems like it’s been a long time since Blazer fans have had something to feel genuinely positive about. In fact, just this morning I was listening to Ryen Russillo on ESPN’s NBA Today Podcast talk about how after two-plus weeks the Blazers were the popular pick to come out of the West, and now here we are, not quite at the end of January, and they aren’t even in the Playoff picture.

Of course it’s too early to say a team is either a contender or a bust (unless you’re talking about the Thunder, contender, or the Wizards, bust), but it does seem like since that early hot start the attitude towards this Portland team has been a combination of negativity and qualified optimism. Negativity when they drop winnable road games and get a shooting clinic from the Orlando Magic; qualified optimism when they beat the Sacramento Kings but have to leave their starters on the floor up until the final minutes of the game’s final quarter.

Rejoice, Portland fans. Tuesday’s win is just about as close to a total positive as you are going to get. Memphis comes in as one of the hottest teams in the league, can match up pretty well with Portland, and plays the kind of turnover producing defense and up-tempo offense that can be a killer for a Blazer team that hasn’t taken good care of the ball as of late, and relies very heavily on long and mid-range jumpers. Tuesday’s game could have very easily gone the other way.

It didn’t. And it didn’t not by luck, or because Memphis took the night off. Tuesday, Portland won because they delivered a balanced scoring attack that started out working the ball inside and getting good looks from in close, because they played defense, at least matching the defensive intensity–if not the execution–of one of the best defensive teams in the league, and because they rebounded.

The Blazers won the battle of the boards 50-to-39. Marcus Camby led the way with an astounding 22, but everybody pitched in. Gerald Wallace snagged 11, LaMarcus Aldridge had six, and six other Blazers had at least one. The extra effort to crash the glass helped negate some of the damage done by turning the ball over, something Portland did 20 times.

Offense wins games, though. And Tuesday Portland looked nearly as fluid on offense as they have all season. They worked the ball inside to Aldridge, who was on fire in the first quarter hitting 5-of-6 from the floor and 4-of-4 from the line for 14 points, and they also attacked with their wings.

There aren’t a ton of teams that have one guy that can defend Aldridge one on one for a full 48 minutes (or the 31:22 which he played for the purpose of accuracy). Memphis tried a bunch of different looks throughout the night. Rudy Gay was the most successful, although his tactic was to play behind LA then foul if LaMarcus got a spin on him towards the hoop. The least successful was Marreese Speights. Aldridge primarily beat up on Speights with his outside shot, but also took him down low a couple of times. Gay’s defense worked because with his length he could challenge the outside shot both when LA faced-up or spun away from the hoop. Marc Gasol had a couple of sequences on LaMarcus too. At least once, LA took the ball outside, isolated Gasol, and just drove by him. You know it’s a good night for the Blazers when LA has a different tactic to deal with each defender he sees.

As for the wing play. Wesley Matthews, Jamal Crawford, and Gerald Wallace were looking to put the ball on the floor and get to the hoop more Tuesday than they had in awhile. Gerald attacks by default, but Crawford and Matthews sometimes play like they need to be convinced. Wesley especially can benefit from driving on nights when his shot isn’t falling. Tuesday, Wesley was 3-of-9 from the field and 1-of-6 from deep, but he did hit six free throws. He needs to keep getting in the lane and keep getting to the line, and maybe that way he can shoot himself out of this extended slump.

Crash didn’t score too much Tuesday, but he had at least one lay-up. At some point it might be nice to look at HoopData and see if Gerald’s best games are when he scores two lay-ups for every jump shot. I know there are nights when he can knock down threes and long twos, but in my opinion, Wallace should be trying to score at the rim every time he touches the ball.

Crawford is a bit of a tricky call when it comes to attacking. He isn’t as big as Wesley Matthews–bulk-wise–and he isn’t as bulky or as tall as Gerald Wallace, so his shot is the most likely out of those three to be blocked at the rim. In fact, Tuesday night, Crawford had a possession when he shook his defender with a crossover (I think it was O.J. Mayo but I can’t be sure, whoever it was ended up on their backside), only to have his lay-up attempt sent away. I still like the idea of Jamal attacking the rim though, primarily because he is such a great free throw shooter. If Crawford is going to be as helpful to this team as he needs to be, helpful enough for Portland to live up to some of that early hype, his efficiency needs to improve. The best way for him to do that is by getting more free throw attempts. Crawford, though, loves his jump shot, and he very rarely looks to drive to the rim as his first recourse. Tuesday, Jamal scored 15 points to lead a productive Portland bench, but he took 13 shots. By comparison, LaMarcus Aldridge took 13 shots and led all scorers with 23 points.

The Blazers have now completed stage two of the three stage gauntlet that is their first back-to-back-to-back–or as Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm so aptly dubbed it a b3b–with easily the most difficult stage yet to come. Portland travels to Oakland tonight to take on Golden State tomorrow, a team they almost never beat in a place they almost always lose. The Warriors have a lot in common with the Grizzlies. They like to get out and run, they’re driven by strong guard play, and they have a tendency to make costly mistakes or play themselves out of a game.

If the Blazers can play Wednesday the way they played Tuesday, they’ll be in pretty good shape. I think going 3-0 on their first b3b might begin to make up for their 2-4 roadie.

Couple of quick things:

• Gerald Wallace took a beating Tuesday night. He got hit in his bad hand, and at one point got leveled by Marc Gasol. I have no doubt that Wallace will go in Wednesday’s game, but I expect he will be pretty sore.
• Coach Nate McMillan once again hesitated to clear his bench, waiting until Memphis skipper Lionel Hollins rotated in his garbage time guys. Nate’s choice to sub, or not sub, has become a point of contention on Twitter, and a bit of a running joke in Nate’s post game media debriefing. I tend to agree that Nate could pull his starters a little earlier every now and then. But I see the point of keeping them out there too. A game is 48 minutes long, and it’s never over until it’s over. Nate isn’t intentionally trying to wear his guys down, but he also isn’t about to give up a comeback in the final stages of a game. One thing he might think about, though, is that his end of the bench guys–at this point that’s Elliot Williams, Luke Babbitt, and Chris Johnson–aren’t getting a chance to run that much because there aren’t that many practice days with this schedule. When those guys did get in Tuesday night, they did not look great. Chris Johnson had a nice dunk, but other than that it was pretty disorganized. There might come a time this season when one or more of those guys has to play, it might help them to get just the smallest bit of meaningful game time action prior to that point.
• One more note on the young guys coming in at the end. If you look closely at the box score you’ll notice that Portland finished with 97 points, three shy of the good stuff. Nolan Smith had a look at three for the chalupa, passing up the chance to give Luke Babbitt the almost unheard of back-to-back chalupa bucket, but it clanked off the rim. The Blazers did get the last possession, but with no shot clock on and no defense, Elliot Williams made the grown-up decision and didn’t put up a shot. Another sad day in Blazer-land.
• Craig Smith had another nice night. 3-of-8 from the field 2-of-2 from the line, eight points in 13 minutes, punctuated by a throw down on a run-out feed from Jamal Crawford. If Portland can get eight points for every 12 to 13 minutes of court time for Rhino they should be very happy. I know that it won’t take too much more for Craig Smith to be a fan favorite, greeted by a standing ovation every time he checks in. Get to the fan shop now, because in a week I bet they’ll be out of Smith #83 jerseys.
• Minutes watch: 2:42 for Luke Babbitt. The only Blazer not to score, and the only Blazer not to attempt a field goal. I know it’s mean to pick on Luke, but, Nate has shown he’s a lot more likely to play Luke in regular game time than Elliot Williams. Luke looks lost when playing with the starters and regular bench players. With the last guys on the roster, I expect him to play with a little more confidence. Let’s be honest, he is the leader of Portland’s garage time unit, seniority rules. Next time Portland is at the end of a blowout, and Babbitt is on the floor, I would like to see him demanding the ball.
• New thing here, not sure if I’ll do it every night, but I thought about it since even this early in the season every game changes Playoff positioning. Standings watch: Portland came into the game in 9th place in the West, Memphis in 4th. With the win, Portland jumps to 6th, Memphis falls to 8th, Dallas bumps up to 7th, and Houston falls out of the race.

Box Score

Standings

email me: mike.acker1@gmail.com

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject

Follow Tony Allen on Twitter (@aa000G9) it's worth it. Photo courtesy of the AP.