It’s always somebody for these Blazers. Since the beginning of December, at least 8 Blazers have had a game with their name stamped all over it. The Blazers’ 109-91 stomping of Golden State will henceforth be known as the updated version of the Steve Blake game.
Blake was the main reason Portland took the Warriors out of the game basically by the mid-point of the first quarter, and his 20 first half points on 4-0f-5 3-point shooting lifted the Blazers to a 56-41 halftime lead. Seemed like Donnie Nelson forgot to mention Blake in yesterday’s practice, because ol’ Steve was just cruising down court and finding 22 feet of air between him and the rim. But he hit contested, yet smart, jumpers in the mid-range, too. Unfortunately, Blake went down after Monta Ellis gave him a knee to the calf on a fast break (a play that might be reviewed by the league since Blake was kind of just standing there) and didn’t return to the game.
That wasn’t the only scare, after racking up six quick assists getting Joel and LaMarcus (great inside games taking advantage of Nellieball) dunks, Roy’s knee buckled after passing off to Martell. It took everybody in the Rose Garden about ten seconds to process that it was Roy lying there, but the second they did, the place went dead like a women’s bathroom when a guy mistakenly walks in (guessing). My heart was beating harder than usual through the halftime shows but Brandon, by the way showing little signs of that bruised tailbone, came back and started the second half, not that he really needed to.
Surprisingly, it was the Blazers that won the 3-point battle, shooting 13-of-28 to the Warriors’ 8-of-29. While Portland went up after getting dunks and layups before whipping the ball around for open 3’s, the Warriors wasting no time showing they were depending on treys to get them back in the game. That’s pretty much their game, and it works sometimes, but they were completely lacking any of the energy you see when you watch them play at home, as they did two nights ago beating San Antonio in overtime. Stephen Jackson looked terrible, and took himself out of the game, mentally, early on.
Baron Davis, meanwhile, did not make a strong case for why he should have a spot over Brandon in the All-Star Game. While Brandon was hurting and somewhat limited on offense, he still made huge contributions mediating the flow and grabbing 8 boards and 8 assists. Baron took just six shots in 14 minutes and clearly had no interest in the game whatsoever. The way their top players looked, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Warrior faithful were calling this the worst game of the season.
Couple individual notes: Channing Frye grabbed 7 rebounds on a poor shooting night (0-for-4) and was very active on defense . . . Webster continued to shoot well, hitting 4-of-6 deep balls but committed a few boneheaded turnovers . . . James Jones did his thing, coming in and nailing three 3’s . . . Jarrett Jack was, how do you say, muy unimpressivo (6 to’s in 24 minutes) . . . Sergio continued his recent trend of making his up and down play more up than down . . . And Outlaw, who wasn’t really the focal point of anything, still contributed, scoring on some nice post-up moves, grabbing 8 rebounds, and actually doing some facilitating when the game was winding down and Taurean Green got some burn
The win finally gave the Blazers the No. 1 spot in the Northwest Division, but, almost more importantly, has solidified a nice January buffer going into this seven game road trip that begins this weekend. Even if they go 3-4 or even 2-5 it won’t be crippling because the boys took care of business beforehand.