Blazers 84, Pistons 83 Re-Thoughts

Contrary to what Mike Barrett this wasn’t the biggest game of the year or biggest win of the season. Yeah….I said it. Don’t get me wrong it was mighty, mighty fine. A great comeback win over Detroit without B-Roy is excellent…I’m just not ready to put that stamp on it yet. I’m sorry. Just thinking out loud here, but really this stretch of games without Brandon Roy is making things kind of weird. It’s easy for the wins with him on the sidelines to become that much sweeter. It’s also easy for the losses with him on the sidelines to become that much easier to swallow. I might be insane but I feel this kind of a weird existance for Blazer fans right now. Maybe it’s because we’ve played some tough teams but there’s been this sense of gloom going into this games and you almost have to prepare yourself for the inevitable…and in two games the inevitable has happened and the Roy-less Blazers were overwhelmed. But in the two others the Blazers have pulled out W’s and made everything seem amazing. Just random thinking.

Also…while I have my ranting jacket on, I love how Travis will be a hero for a couple days. Just love it.

Onto tonight’s game….the win was a great win. You can put any win without Roy in the lineup in the great win category. I hesitate to throw heaps and heaps of praise on it because in my heart of hearts we’re an Allen Iverson play from a heartbreaking loss. And yes my heart stopped twice in the last 24 seconds. The difference in effort between the first half and second half was like Britney Spears now and Britney Spears last year. There were points early where it just felt like it was going to be a long night. But the Blazers turned it up a few notches and gutted out the win. It was a great team effort.

(Sidenote…how annoyingly good was Tayshaun Prince tonight? Seriously. How mad did he make you? You can be honest with me. I did not see that explosion coming and he would have made my least favorite player list with ease had the Pistons won. He went to work.)

The one guy I want to highlight off the bat is Jerryd Bayless. Well to be more exact, Jerryd Bayless in the third quarter. Definitely not getting into a Sergio vs. Jerryd debate or any of that nonsense, but JB can play. He is going to be a big-time player and this stretch of PT could be the blessing of having to see B-Roy sit out. Four free throws, two steals, six points and a dunk? That was just a great stretch of basketball kudos to him.

(Also, kudos to Michael Curry for putting Afflalo on Outlaw instead of Tayshaun Prince. Thanks for that gift, I’ll be sure to write nice things about you when you inevitably get fired.)

Don’t want to be too positive or too negative.

Reviewing the keys:

The Blazers….kind of contained one Detroit perimeter player. I’ll take AI putting up 19 field goal attempts and only getting 4 free throw attempts 9 times out of 10. Stuckey struggled from the field and was a turnover machine. Prince….unstoppable.

Box out. We didn’t. Detroit smashed us on the boards 40-28. Yucky.

LaMarcus showed up offensively. I’ll take 26 on 11/21 with Roy out of the lineup every game.

A great confidence building win. We’ll see which Blazer team shows up to play the Warriors though.