The final score tonight was 110-81, but this game was so much more than that. The Rose Garden was rockin’ like the Lakers were in town and everyone on this team had their time to shine. The Kings were a non-entity, completely dismantled by the Blazers crowd. Sacramento was without Kevin Martin and Brad Miller, and it was a meaningless preseason game, but that was a team winning a meaningless preseason game, stepping up on defense and sharing the rock.
I won’t go too much into the game itself, it being a complete blowout, but I want to talk about a few players.
-Greg Oden played his allotted 20 minutes, and he looked both huge and dominant. The Blazers fed him often in the post, and Greg either muscled his way over his defender for a dunk, hit a nice hook or kicked out of a double team for an open three. Not all his moves looked pretty, but most of them were effective. On defense he crowded the paint and challenged almost every attacker that came his way, garnering four fouls in the process. His position was normally good except for a few Kings’ drives, and by the second half you could tell he had established his presence. Spencer Hawes learned this the hard way. The package has arrived just as promised.
-Brandon Roy did Brandon Roy things, getting many of his 7 assists in the early going. Didn’t see any effects of the knee injury.
-Jason Quick has been saying LaMarcus Aldridge has been the best player at training camp and the big man from Texas showed us why. He was getting into the paint more often than we’ve seen and even snatched a few tough rebounds. Everything about him just looked more polished and more aggressive.
-Sergio deserves a lot of credit. After nearly being written off during the offseason, he has come back ready to play and ready to shoot. The arc is back on his shot, which he is taking with confidence, and he looked more in his element running the offense than he has before. Especially with another certain Spaniard around.
-Rudy. Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. What can I say about the guy. There will undoubtedly be times this season to criticize him, but tonight he made himself the main event, bouncing passes between defender’s legs, making crazy acrobatic plays on alley-oops and feeding Martell Webster a number of beautiful dimes. His shot was off during garbage time, but we aren’t really worried about that are we? He’s going to make our second unit very fun to watch.
-Bayless, on the other hand, was a little underwhelming. He acquitted himself fine, but failed to stand out with his teammates other than a nice drive or two. Its clear he’s still learning, but he did display some very steady on-ball defense on whoever was playing PG for the Kings.
-Everyone else was solid. Martell wasn’t stroking it well but made up for that by filling the lanes and finishing with style. Travis Outlaw grabbed seven boards, had a tip-dunk and shot the ball alot, as he is prone to do. Pryzbilla was the same steady Pryzbilla and Ike Diogu, while seemingly trying a bit too hard, made some nice moves and went after every rebound. The rest of the roster filled garbage time, though Batum did have a drive and jam before the game was out of reach. The point of this paragraph? The Blazers are deep. Their depth has depth.
Mostly, though, this was just a game to sit back, smile, feed your excitement and relish being a Blazer fan. Not every night is going to be like this, but it’s nights like this that remind you just how sweet it is to be a fan of this team.