Game 71 Recap: Blazers UGH, Sonics YAY

Pretend we won the game, and that we lost that double-overtimer to Chicago a couple months back to even things out.

Let the Star Wars-esque retconning begin.

[rant]

The Second Unit played HORRIBLE tonight.  It made me wish that the Blazers had a player that could create shots for other players.  You know because the second unit has like 3 or 4 good shooters at any given time, if we only had a player like Colderon that could get the second unit shooters in a rhythm so that they could shoot out of their slumps and become more effective even after that shot creator left.  You know, some one who is good at passing and could play an up tempo game that exposed the Sonic weaknesses.  

I think we had a good passer, I even think he looked like Blake at a distance, but with different hair and funny socks.  Maybe he is stuck in the chasmal depths of Nate's dog house.  I would go looking but I traded my spelunking gear for boozes so I could forget the idiot move by Nate not to play any of the Blazer's projects even after they are eliminated from the playoffs.  It not like Brandon has foot and knee problems, or Joel has any problems staying health for a season, or Jones has knee problems, or our young core could use at least diminished playing time in many of their first whole seasons to keep them from looking like the Spurs in 8 short years.

It is not like playing the project/younger guns could arm KP with more ammo for trades, allow him to put the final touches on a team destined to have championship hopes.  To dupe bad GMs into taking a player with one good week off our hands for a future ROY winner.  Its not like when you score 10 POINTS! in the 3rd on the WORST defensive team in the NBA, a pass first point guard with a habit of making things happen could have be worth the risk.  Its not like a PG that excels in up tempo games could have helped, if only by allowing him to have a good game and raise his stock so KP feels good about trading him away, or make Rudy feel like he is wanted in a place 100 times zones away.  No, Nate has been playing his cards right.

[/rant]

Not much to say besides AWFUL.

What happened to LMA?  I had the Sonics feed and they didn't even remark on his absence.  Is he hurt?

I recorded the game and watched on my DVR just now.  This, uh, was supposed to be a win.  I guess we got screwed by the refs again :-(

The Bullets are playing well, so we need to actually PLAY AN NBA BASKETBALL GAME like real pros do to beat them.  

We might be the only team this season to not score 150 points on these Sonics.  What an awful night offensively.

Thank goodness this hasn't happened much this year.  I still think we'll finish at .500 or just over, but losing this game hurts.

Mortimer

I think i'm the most upset that I've been in the past two years as a blazer fan.

seattle is not that good of a team and we gave it to them.  It didn't help that I had a friend who said "blazers will lose" to me during the game and I told her "no they won't"  (not the girl I'm dating by the way because HOW could I date a girl like that!!!???)

There was no back to back.  Sure they only had one day of rest, but they were traveling from south to north and not that far.

There is no excuse on this one that I find acceptable.

Sure, Aldridge went out, but we're supposed to have a good team that can handle that.  Instead there was NO defense (and this has been a problem for a while for some reason) WHY were we not attacking inside against this team?  Are players refusing to do what they're told to do by the coaches or are the coaches not recognizing that they need to attack inside?

Whatever the reasons, I feel that the blazers KNOW what they need to do, and they're choosing not to do it for whatever reason and this game REALLY showcased it.

I love the blazers, but they need to start doing what they know they need to do because there was NO excuse to NOT be doing that against a weak Sonic team.

I can't wait for Oden to get in because of his competitive nature.  I feel that this team really is lacking and needing that.

Also, as this team continues to "unravel" to some extent with worse defensive play as the season goes on and other mistakes, I think it's a time to make some off season moves.

To be clear, I'm not advocating blowing the team up, but I think there are clearly some pieces that don't fit with what we're doing.

Also... Webster... 15 in the first and then... nothing???  Seriously???

Now, after all that venting, I'm sure the blazers are tired, but seattle has been playing the same season we have, so I dismiss that reason for our poor play as well.

Very discouraging and a friend who said "I told you so" REALLY didn't help.  This is the first time I've been a bit angry at the blazers.  I hope they're hanging their heads in shame over this loss because that was just disgusting.

I say play the bench players and lets see what the buried players can do with significant time because it doesn't look like this team has the will to win and really make the play-offs.

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Okay, I'm going to go take a deep breath, and hopefully i feel better about the blazers tonight now that I've vented.

Or he was hurt, or sick, or something?  It wasn't a case of him getting great shots and missing, he simply wasn't working to get better ones.  I know it's been a long season, and this was the third game in four nights or whatever but so what.  I thought for a while Brandon was just focusing on getting his teammates shots at his own expense, but when it became clear he was needed he didn't step up - at all.  Don't give me that garbage about Seattle's length bothering him.  He just didn't come to play for whatever reason.  I hate to call to Brandon because I'm a huge fan but I'm just telling it like it is.  Forget about the points and the shooting, 4 fouls, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 0 steals, and 0 blocks in 40 minutes isn't like Brandon.

LMA was sub-par (1 rebound in 22 mins??) even before he left with the injury.  Not terrible, just not as good as he's been.

Martell was great for a quarter, disappeared the rest of the game.  But I guess he was the 'hero' last night.  5 rebounds and 3 assists in 33 minutes is decent and his defense met the minimum standards.

Prz was ok.

Blake was ok.  

Travis Outlaw seems pretty ineffective these days.  I wonder if his low basketball IQ is going to hold him back from ever being a star.  On offense, he has absolutely no concept of what a good shot is.  It's catch/shoot no matter where he is on the floor, how much time is on the clock, even if someone else has a better look.  His shot looks pretty when it goes in, and we all have fond memories of The Streak when he couldn't miss, but it's back to real-life now and he's not going to make enough of those 18 footers to be effective.  As we can now see from his 43% FG (and rapidly dropping) the laws of averages are catching up to him.  And with his quickness and leaping ability, he can get better shots nearly always!  On defense, if you just watch closely you can see how bad he is - how often he gets beat, how often he goes for a block and gets a foul/allows an offensive rebound, how often he fails to help out quickly enough when a teammate is beat.  1 assist, 2 rebounds, 3 fouls, and 3 TO in 21 minutes...ugh.

Channing was ok.

JJ was JJ.

James Jones took one shot in 14 minutes - did he really play that many minutes?  I don't remember him at all.  2 rebounds, 1 steal, nothing else - I guess that's why.  I like James Jones as much as the next guy, but does he honestly think he's going to get a huge contract somewhere?  /chuckle

It was yet another case of the big two struggling and nobody else stepping up.  I remember thinking before the game that Seattle was in tank-mode and Portland was playing like it meant something and what a dull uninspiring game it was going to be.  Well it was still dull, but for ALL THE WRONG REASONS.  Last night was yucky, and I'm pretty disappointed in the gang.

 

Greg Oden can't fix that.

...for the Seattle fans to remember us by. The Portland Trail Blazers, the Team that used to come up here and stink up the arena.

That is a sad memory to leave. Now I hope the SuperSonics are still there next year. Just to clear the air.

about it being a winnable game.  Blazers went into it thinking they'd already won it and when Seattle actually offered some resistance they didn't know what to do.  When someone punctures your balloon it's awfully hard to blow it up again.  (And this team, more than most I remember, seems to feed off each other - and if one isn't eating none of them do.)

I really wished we'd see Wafer and Sergio and Raef - I know Nate likes to stick to his rotation, but when the guys aren't getting it done, just throw caution to the winds and let the other guys play.  I think we know by now that when Travis & Martell & Jones & Jack aren't scoring (or stop scoring) nothing is going to change.  Sergio, Wafer & Raef aren't that bad - had they gotten to play I'm sure the game wouldn't have been any worse and the others would have gotten some rest.  It's not like throwing in the towel - it's looking for something that works.

The + - stat gets a bad rap.  What happened tonight is pretty simple.  Our starters sans Aldridge got beat badly by their starters.  Our bench didnt get beat nearly as bad by their bench, but still ended up in negative numbers.  You can whine about how its not accurate all you but if you think Jack would have done any better in Blakes place, you are crazy.  It is what it is, they outscored us by 15 when Joel was playing.  I dont understand why that is so hard to grasp, he may have grabbed a lot of boards, but we didnt outscore them with him in the game.  Isnt that all that matters?  who can score more points?  Last I checked getting more rebounds doesnt directly win you a game, but outscoring your opponent does.  The + - stat displays exactly that.

On a similar note, I find it funny that these summaries  consistently understate Blakes performance while overstating Jacks.  Blake had 7 and 9 on 3-8 shooting, yet that translates to: "Blake couldnt hit a shot, but at least he had 9 assists".  Why not ridicule Jack for his poor shooting? Blake shot 38% while Jack shot 33%.  Instead we get the same old line of crap about Jack getting to the hoop and drawing 5 foul shots, OUTSTANDING!!!  Thats a "decent game"?  I dont know where we would have been without those 5 foul shots, probably down like 50 or something...

Might the early summer start that the players, fans and coaches alike, praised as an unprecedented show of team unity be catching up to players like Jack and Roy? Last night's game was just plain flat. JJ might be been better off to let that primo parking spot go to somebody else next year so he has gas left in the tank for when it really matters. We have not seen many games like this from Roy this season, and I know he has played a ton of minutes, but he sets the tone for this team, and when he gets knocked down and lays on the floor without getting back on defence......well that just can't happen.

I've been pretty good about handling losses this year, but this one leaves a really, really bad taste in my mouth.

Put me down as totally deflated and jealous of anybody who can work up a rant.

Brian Hendrickson didn't call his game review a recap, he called it an autopsy.