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and

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Okay, now that that's out of my system.   Boy did those Blazers make the Jazz look good.  I think my gf said it best when she said "the blazers must be really tired, Greg Oden looks energetic!"

Monday I will be baking 300 cookies, wearing PINK fluffy slippers, an apron with the jazz logo, and I will be serving it to each and everyone of the 70-100 employees we have.  BAH

The Cheerleaders:

I've got to admit, their skill level is low but their outfits weren't bad.   They had this colorful sparkly one that if they added wings, they'd be looking like faeries.  Another black outfit with a white undershirt was rather cute.  I wasn't completely into the shorts as I'm definitely a skirt man, but not bad.

The Pregame:

Watched Sergio take about 100 shots.   Watched him miss 50-60% of them.  His shots looked flat and some with arcs would hit the rim.  He signed autographs before he headed into the tunnel.   A lot of YOUNG blazer fans at the games.  Many were in full on jersey mode.  I may need to break down and get a jersey so I can fly my teams colors.

The warmup involved the blazers making about 20% of their shots.   Possibly not a good sign, but I had a good vibe.  Determined to win because, you know... my blazers wouldn't let me down... right?  I refused to let any negativity into it my thinking.

Oden:

I watched Oden a lot tonight so I'll drop it all here.  During warm ups he looked like he belonged. I say this not in how he practiced, but how he stood and walked and his body language.   He didn't look like some drooped over kid that was wondering what he was doing there, but like a guy that was supposed to be on the court.   I find that to be a good thing... but...

During warm-up he'd grab the ball and hand it off to someone else instead of shooting multiple times.  MULTIPLE times.   He probably had half as many shots as everyone else.   His shots also had the feel of "I'm not going to invest in this so that if I miss it's because I didn't really try".   I've played like that before and it NEVER ends well.   If you know what I'm talking about, that's what I saw from his shots in practice.   He never dunked.  He banked a few, and he had some flat hook shots that would make those Zamboni drivers proud.  I winced.   This guy looks like he has ZERO offense.  He also had zero energy.

During the game, this ugliness continued.   Seriously, I think I have better form and feel than Greg Oden does and I suck.  He doesn't seem to have the feel for where the basket it.  At ALL.  I can hook shots in because I KNOW where the basket is.  No I couldn't shoot blind folded all the time and make them, but I could make a few after I play on a basket a little bit.  Greg doesn't have this feel at all.   He has like -10 to that skill.  Really, when I see greg I imagine a character in WOW with resurection sickness.   -75% to all stats.

Greg helps out the team in a lot of ways.  He also hurts the team in a lot of ways.  My gf was screaming for Pryz to be in.  Normally I feel that greg helps out in ways that don't show up in the stats other than a win, but this game, I saw something maybe twice.

Overall I don't like Greg's body language.  It's improved, but he looks like he's just afraid to invest himself because he's afraid he'll fail.  I don't like how he feels, to me, isolated from his team out there.  I have a strong feeling that someone needs to kick his freaking asphalt and tell him to suck it up.  I felt for the guy earlier, but I'm sorry... at some point you need to freaking deal and someone should tell him that.  Have fun, act like you want to be there, act like you care about the shots instead of not committing to them.  He's practicing how NOT to do it, and that's not good.

Obviously there are coaches who know more than I do.  This is simply what I saw and the "vibe" I got from watching him.

Game Time:

The blazers came out with some energy.  It didn't last longer than the 1st quarter and maybe not even that long.  They also came out with holes in their defense large enough to drive the titanic through without hitting a berg.  Last time they came to town I complained about the lack of help defense and directing players into others.  this game the jazz would just pass to wide open spots so that defense wouldn't have helped because the blazers couldn't find their man with GPS attached to their hineys and big flashing arrows pointing to them.

The crowd was decently loud AND it didn't sound canned or amplified.  Quieter than the last game, but the cheers sounded real.  Very much like a blazer crowd in that they want their team to win.   Fans would jump up shouting "YES!!!"   on the good plays and were very involved.

Their mascot, as much as I don't like him, is there, not for the kiddies, but to AMP up that crowd.  The blazer mascot should take some notes.   I swear that Blaze is only there for the kids and thus he is a buzz kill of mine.

I laughed at Sergio and Rudy jumping around like mexican jumping beans at the top of the key and then "ZIP" the pass goes between them right under the basket for a dunk.   At that point I suspected that the blazers would not be making a come back.

The blazers hold the ball too long and miss WIDE open opportunities for nice passes.   I don't know if you can see it on tv, but many times the blazers would be running down and a man would be open or semi open.  A quick pass and you have an easy bucket.  Instead the blazers let the defense settle in and pass the ball 20 times and suddenly it was ten times harder to score.

Additionally, with 2 minutes left and down by nine you TAKE that quick 3pt shot or inside shot when you're open.  Instead the blazers would keep passing.  You just do NOT have the clock time to do that.   In that situation it's time to gamble a little because if you play it safe, you're going to lose.  

A thought crossed my mind that the "7 seconds or less" Sun shooting rules might need to be applied to this team.  This team needs to know when to gamble and when to get the ball moving QUICKLY and when to recognize you're open for a good shot.    rudy passed up a wide open three to pass to sergio who was a little more covered and NOT as good shooting the three.  Passing for the sake of passing is dumb.

A guy commented behind me:  "The blazers only have one good player, and that's Roy."   Watching this game only, I really can't argue.  Aldridge got his points, had nice finesse shots, but he does not dominate.  I suspect that bumping him around a bit would really mess with his game.

Sergio and Greg kept getting balls stripped from their hands.  When you're tired you react slower and when you're not (jazz) things can seem like they're in slow motion and thus the game becomes easy because you can be insanely precise.

The Fouls:

I'm not going to get too down on the refs here.  That said, there were some major phantom fouls at the beginning of the game against the blazers.   The blazers were being aggressive, it was just flat out bad calls.

The Flagrant on Frye looked like he simply stuck his hand up and got ball and the guy collapsed under it.   You would probably see better than I would with the 20 replays I'm sure you got.

The mascot shined the refs shoes, played with them, high fived them and fisted fived them (what is that called anyway?).   Home cooking?  Possibly, but the blazers didn't come to play either.  Yeah, we got bad calls, but the blazers could have played to reverse that and they didn't.

The blazer fans:

Saw quite a few of them.   One across the aisle 4 up front.  The cam flashing around snagged blazer jerseys jumping into the picture at least twice and probably more as I wasn't paying attention to the cam all the times.   Highlight of the game was when a girl groped her gf and attempted to flash the crowd but couldn't get her shirt up because it was too tight.

Place wasn't swarming with blazer fans, but you could hear clapping and cheers and I'm sure each section had at least five to ten.   I think that's pretty good.  also, lots of empty seats.

The Summary:

Cheerleaders still suck at stunts but looked good with their outfits.  Definite upgrades.

Blaze should take serious notes and learn how to pump up the crowd.

Blazers played like a  team that's been in 7 different cities in the past 12 days.  If you don't travel a lot, you have no idea what that's like.  I've done enough traveling to know I'd be hating life.

I'm going to be ribbed about this bet for a long long long time.  My team let me down and I'm a bit ticked despite reasons that I can understand it happening.   I did NOT want to lose this bet.

I'm bummed.  I was hoping my blazers would step up.  They've had a harsh schedule, but I was still hoping for some love and I feel like they let me down.  Obviously they don't know me from that brown stain in my neighbors yard, but seriously that's how I feel.

Hopefully the blazers can wake up for the clipper game because right now they look like they need a week off and they can't have it.   That clipper game will be 8 games in 13 days and 7 different cities and 8 different flights to cities.  Just so you all know.  I'm not super hopeful they'll do well that game either.  I should say, that I won't be surprised if they lose.   That team is TIRED.