First of all, I am more optimistic than ever that the Blazers can get homecourt back in this series. Absent the first 12 minutes of last night's game, we outplayed a Houston team that was defending tougher than any other game in this series.

However, I am going to set myself on fire if I continue to see Wafer/Lowry/Brooks drive and dunk/lay it in on us! For some reason, the Rockets figured out (after "where 42 happens") that collapsing onto penetration might be a good idea, and the Blazers managed very few shots at the rim last night. Why then do our defenders continue to escort these slashers to the hole, waking up only to pull the ball out of the net.

I know I am generalizing, and that ours is a team defensive effort. I have the feeling that Blake/Brandon/Catfish are working within the sceme to not reach and allow the bigs to switch over, but IT'S NOT WORKING. In fact it's killing us with foul trouble when we actually do rotate, and the Rockets are passing out of doubles to their bigs for equally easy shots.

I would love to see some man-to-man accountability, and hereby suggest that any time one of these guys gets one of these (in the Rocket lingo) Highly Efficient Shots, Nate goes old school and demands 10 laps around the gym from the burned defender.

Also, does anyone else think that our beloved Trout might be playing his way either out of town, or to third on the small forward depth chart? I love me some Travis, but he looks lost on both ends of the floor, and obviously he is struggling with the big stage.

I am scratching my head as to why Nic's minutes have not increased (10 minutes to Outlaw's 31 last night), at least for the time being. If Travis can get a rhythm going, we need his scoring, but I say adjust to what has developed in these first three games, and let's see more of the Roy/Rudy/Batum at 1-2-3 in the next game. I say this knowing that Batum basically has NO stats last night, but I htink we all know that his contributions generally don't translate to box score stats.