1.  On Greg:

He looked absolutely exhausted.  Maybe seeing the game in person was a bit different or something, but the guy looked totally beat out there from the start of the game.  Hopefully he will be ready to go 100% come the start of the regular season, but as of right now it doesn’t look like his conditioning is anywhere near ready considering the start of the season is a mere 2 weeks away.

Dicky B certainly wasn’t looking to do him any favors out there, and the Jazz were more than willing to rough him up.  Had there been more scorers out there perhaps he would not have had such a difficult time out there.

No cause for alarm from this game, but he certainly looked like a rookie for the first time really this pre-season.

2. On Batman:

Batum was certainly the brightest spot of the night.  He got lost a couple times on some switches and defensive assignments early but after that the kid played great.  Excellent perimeter defense including a couple blocked jump shots, and he did everything the Blazers would ever want him to do on the offensive end.  Hit open 3’s? Check.  Finish on fast break opportunities? Check again.

If he can be consistent at playing anywhere near the level he played, and get better at communication on defense and more used to the NBA game than he will certainly be a rotation guy this year and depending how things go could really be “the guy” as early as next year.  Both KP and Nate talk about wanting a guy to step up as a lockdown perimeter defender that’s able to hit open shots, and looks like Batman has the potential to fit that bill.

3. On Outlaw:

Really the 3’s were the only true bright spot to this game for Portland.  Travis has been coming under a lot of flack and needed to have a good game.  He went out and did just that (on both ends of the floor though his stats might not suggest it). 

On offense I counted only two real forced shots, the rest were pretty in rhythm and his jumper certainly looked wet tonight.  It was nice to see him catch and shoot a couple of them for a change as well.  What was even nicer to see was him driving UNDER CONTROL and taking what the defense gave him.  Lots of times it seems he drives because he thinks he should drive and kind of tries to bull his way to the basket…he’s not LeBron, he can’t do that.  He also had a couple of nice dump-offs underneath but Greg bobbled away one and Joel the other (no surprise there).  No assists, but hey he didn’t have any turnovers either.

On defense he needed to rebound better, but let’s not kid ourselves the whole team was extremely lackluster on the boards tonight.  Utah is physical and the Blazers got pushed around a ton.  On the plus side, he didn’t get lost on D much, and was providing some help defense.  And he took a charge, got a couple steals, a block etc.  He was not Batum out there but the effort was there tonight at least.  Too often even the effort is lacking.

4.  SERGIO

Sergio had a solid game that would have been really good except for his abysmal free-throw shooting.  Considering who he had to distribute the ball to an 8 assist performance is not at all shabby.  He had a couple bad turnovers but wasn’t completely out of control with the ball.

5 rebounds and 5 steals though is really nice to have from the PG.  Additionally for the most part he played really solid D on Derron Williams (I think he’s decent right?)  At one point in the early first quarter D-will had that little post up on him with the shot clock winding down and Sergio stayed right in front of him and was up in his grill contesting the shot.

Overall so far this pre-season Sergio has been pretty consistent.  Both his defense and his outside shot look far better than they did last year and if he continues to play as he is I don’t see how he can’t be at least #2 on the PG depth chart.  20+ mpg would seem to be in order. 

5. Jerryd Bayless

Looked bad…period.

Was nice to see something from him against Atlanta, but he did not look good at all versus the Jazz.  His stats don’t look THAT horrible, but trust me on this.  He did absolutely nothing to impress or indicate that he should be getting anything but mop-up minutes.

He’ll be good eventually consistently and will probably have a few good games this season, but he needs to let the game come to him.  He’s just trying too hard right now it seems to me.

6. The Battle for 15

All the white guys looked horrible…Randolph had a couple little nifty moves but couldn’t finish tonight.  Hill only played a minute, and Jackson wouldn’t even take his open shots for some reason.  I guess he decided to use his blinding foot speed and athleticism to take it to the rack.  It never worked out to well for him.

Well that’s it for that game.  Now we just have to wait a week for another game.  Hopefully it will be televised this time…