If Dwight Howard wouldn’t have bricked both his free throws directly before that play, it would have been moot.

Superman’s kryptonite is the charity stripe.

I think Jeff Van Gundy gets emotional watching his lil’ bro’s team. A few plays before that, he was praising Jameer Nelson’s game and saying that he was the only one on the magic making the right decisions.

Sometimes you’ve just got to tip your hat to the guy for making an incredible shot. I @#$%ing hate the L*kers, but Derek Fisher made a great play, simple as that.

As far as Outlaw goes, if the Blazers were in the same situation (with Greg Oden at the line instead of Dwight Howard) Coach Mac would have substituted Nicolas Batum for Outlaw after the first free-throw as a situational defender.

I thought you were going to ask if Outlaw has a chance to make a huge leap in his game next season. I guess we’ve moved on

And Travis will always make dumb plays. Why? Because his bbiq is low. Yeah he’s got an amazing ability to hit hard jump shots. But that’s both a blessing and a curse.

first. the bonehead defensive play

second, he got nailed in the face by k*be and there was no wistle

Dwight should have made the FTs and Kobe should have been called on the elbow to the jaw. Air France jogged back on a fast break and allowed a 2 on 1 play. There are a bunch of other examples of critical plays that could have changed the outcome.

Is Trout streaky? Sure. Is that worse than being consistently mediocre?

……………………… Particularly now that Kobe has lost the first step and can’t get to the rack at will (which puts him into Travis’ agility category). You will see lots of perimeter jumpers, and the ones that go down can be godlike; and the ones that miss can be moronic. But you take the good with the bad because THIS PARTICULAR SORT OF PLAYER can get the “open” jumper against anyone, even when he’s covered, by elevating and fading.

Kobe is MUCH more intense and determined and commands more respect from opponents (thus having more options for passes to open teammates). But nevertheless, the TYPE of player is the same.

Travis gets blamed for too much and is appreciated too little.

That said, I’d trade him in a heartbeat for a glass-eating 4, because I like POWER BALL, not jumpshooting. But I’m just saying, many people are inconsistent about Travis, overlooking his merits while exaggerating his deficiencies…

He does’t make players around him better. Players tend to stand and watch because they know that he’s going up with the shot. I love all the game winning shots he’s hit, belive me, but yes, I could see him making the same bone-head play that Nelson made last night, because i’ve seen it to many times before from him.

No worth here.

Orlando got beat because they trapped the ball and Fisher was pretty much wide open as a result. Not because Jameer Nelson was some kind of a dummy. Nelson did the right thing after the Lakers had a 4 on 3 – he covered Ariza and then switched back out to Fisher. He just couldn’t get far enough out on Fisher who was fully 5 feet behind the three-point line.

This made you think of Outlaw because Outlaw is your scapegoat. He’s from Mississippi and has the southern accent, therefore he must be intellectually challenged.

Lay off the poor guy. – Elgin

That said, I was in the keep Jarrett Jack camp too.

You know what you’re getting with Outlaw in that you don’t always know what you’re getting, if that makes any sense. He will take that crazy shot, and it goes in often enough to make Outlaw feel like a coin flip. But when the Blazers have stalled out this past year, I’ve been happy to take a coin flip for a chance to restart the offense. Sometimes he’s heads and sometimes he’s tails. And it seemed to me that when Outlaw was tails on a particular night toward the end of the year, Rudy was getting the minutes instead.

I want Outlaw here for what he brings, and I am willing to put up with his weaknesses, but I want Rudy to be our sixth man. And I think Outlaw can be okay with that. And as a result, Outlaw is less likely to be in a postion to make that tails-type play.

Your postscript doesn’t quite sit right with me. Every player makes mistakes during games. I’m sure you can find moments where LeBron James lost his team games in the ECF. Talking about an “I told you so” post when Outlaw screws up in a big game seems a bit over the top and a tad confrontational, for I’m sure I could do one for Roy, Aldridge, Oden, or anyone who plays significant minutes in that situation. Or we could swing it the other way, and I could claim to write an “I told you so” post when Outlaw hits a big shot in a game. Both of us would probably have the opportunity to write those posts.

Now all of this could be (Mortimer’s favorite word a few days ago) moot if Outlaw is traded. While I want to keep him, if he goes, life as a Blazer fan goes on.

I hope I made a little sense. It’s past midnight back here, and I need to go to bed.

get value for trout while we can. Too many bad shots, too inconsistent, poor defense, too much unfulfilled potential.

And I agree that it’s time to get what we can for Travis.
Travis is the perfect guy for a perennial .500 team- he makes the spectacular look everyday, but he also makes the routine into an adventure.
This isn’t a good thing to put faith in consistently. We need stability now, and Travis is a loose cannon. Whether it’s because he doesn’t listen or because he has a low BBIQ, Travis isn’t a guy I want in the rotation going forward.

And yes, I fully understand that Travis is going to go to a team that gives him a ton of shots, he’ll start getting star calls, and he’ll put up some big numbers, but his teams will never be contenders.

I have always thought that Travis’s tremendous physical gifts masked his lack of basketball smarts. The reason I would trade him is that I worry that he is more likely to lose us an important game due to a boneheaded play than win us one due to a tremendous athletic play. I say that in full knowledge that I may (and ultimately hope) that I am proven wrong.