FanPost

Game 3 at LAL: Same cake, different recipe

After the quiet training camp and the assuredly meh offseason, punctuated by the relegation of some promising young bodies to the injury list and the end of the bench, the Portland Trail Blazers have reset all expectations.

Today the Blazers showed up at the Staples Center, and retained possession of the field of battle.

Here's the current status according to Bill Simmons:

Now everybody should be asking, what do the Blazers need to do so that they can build on this momentum?

Recaps

Fouls (again, but from the other side)

Don't worry. The Blazers still rang up fewer fouls, and took more free throws than their opponents. The made FT margin exceeded the margin of victory again.

To be fair, you can pick almost any production differential and say that it made the difference to the outcome; Portland's average MoV is +3.7.

There was something odd about the foul line in today's boxscore: 40% of the team's fouls were committed by the starting guards. Damian Lillard ended the first half in foul trouble, and Anfernee Simons spent most of the game in foul trouble.

Part of that shocking stat line we can blame on LeBron James… being LeBron James, but the rest gives us cause to be pleased.

Committing a foul means that the player was either [a] being a jerk, or more likely [b] attempting to meet their assignment with credible defense.

Dame and Ant took on one of the hardest assignments in the history of the game and survived to share the tale. That might not be worth much, but it confirms that they're really trying. This writer, ever the shameless RCTID/Rip-City type, stands pleased beyond the telling of it. You should be, too. Watch this space!

L.A. being L.A. …

Something the commentaries miss entirely so far is that the officials signalled their intentions for the game from the get-go. Portland wasn't doomed—obviously—but as far as the officials were concerned the Blazers could expect to spend a lot of time playing from behind. The credit goes to the Blazers for taking this in stride.

But that wasn't all. It's time to savage the cowardly approach to Portland's successful challenge.

What we saw was Nurkic making incidental contact with Beverley to bother him, then Beverley's ridiculous flinch and flop. Nurkic was then promptly tripped and sent to the floor by a tangle in good faith by LBJ, whose momentum was still carrying him into the play. The called foul was assessed to Jusuf Nurkic, and the challenge put a pin in the whole thing. So far, so good.

Rule 14—dense and poorly typeset online though it may be—covers things pretty well. Common sense and the language of the rule demand that the officials assess the correctness of the original call, which they did appropriately. Common sense also demands assessment of a possible technical or Flagrant 1 for flopping, but that's where the officials chickened out. Here's what the rules have to say:

The on-court crew chief may also review the video to determine only the following other matters:

[…R14.III.a.2] Whether a different foul proximate to the called foul should have been called…

[R14.III.a.9] Whether any unsportsmanlike acts or unnecessary contact occurred.

Immediately after that subsection the official rule offers the following guidance:

NOTE: For purposes of Section III-a(2) above, the factors that will be considered in determining whether a prior uncalled foul is proximate to the called foul include (1) whether the players involved in the uncalled foul are the same or different players than the ones involved in the called foul under review…

In other words, the rules discourage rulings that penalize players even merely adjunct to the play, as LeBron James was at the time.

This writer charges that rather than put the Lakers in an irrecoverable bind, the on-court officials punted the decision about unsportsmanlike conduct to the replay official, who came back with a recommendation that LeBron James—the biggest basketball superstar of the present era, who never gets called for fouls unless they're too egregious to ignore—be called for a foul instead.

A Lakers fan might see the wisdom of Solomon in this solution, but this Blazers fan sees profound cowardice and collusion that minimized the consequences Beverley will suffer for flopping. This Blazers fan did not expect to get this angry with the officials this early in the season, even after factoring in the involvement of the Los Angeles Lakers.

L.A.'s game to lose, and they lost it

Most of you were watching; those of you who weren't can easily enough get an idea from this:

That was where the wheels came off for the Lakers, but the horrible defense everybody's criticizing was the result of a straightforward—and good!—offensive plan: put All The Shooters on the floor, make sure one of them is Dame, and watch the hilarity ensue. I'm glad the staff waited for the end of the game to play that card.

Dave's analysis of the role that LBJ's vise grip on the Lakers offense had in their failure to convert their last possession is required reading, for those of you who are still amazed.

My kingdom for effective drills!

We've seen how players carry on in their offices. We know how Dame is on that imaginary line between the left elbow and the left side of the 3P arc—or in the right outside quarter of the halfcourt when he brings up the ball. (SEE ALSO: Aldridge, LaMarcus on the left block.)

De'Aaron Fox has his office, Devin Booker his, and if we needed any reminder, we know that LeBron's is on the baseline for a cut to the basket. Fair 'nuff… but that's where he hammered the Blazers when they could least afford it.

Obviously, preparing for LeBron James has something in common with preparing for nuclear war: you can try, but there's not much chance that you'll really succeed.

…But wouldn't it be nice if the Blazers tried, even just a little?

Postscripts

  • The A/V sync on the Portland broadcast is all messed up; in effect, video's being delayed longer than audio. That's not how that's supposed to work.
  • It appears that the Blazers are settling into their reality as a small team: mismatches aren't rattling them, and their zone defense continues to improve, albeit slowly.
  • "Local Kid Gets Called Up" is a great story, but if you see more than that—say, the raw material of a successful pro journeyman—you might not be wrong. One look at Eubanks' FT% tells us what we need to know about his grasp of fundamentals; if he can master those and keep learning to make the most of his size, he's golden.
  • AD showed signs of being out of shape… but so did Nurk. The latter issue comes up from time to time in comments.
  • The early-game stumbles weren't down to ill-advised efforts to tune a system, but instead a plan to feed the ball to Dame and get him hot early. That plan failed, so between that lost step and the refs, Portland spent most of the game playing from behind.
  • [ETA:] A glance at usual suspects like Silver Screen & Roll and the L.A. Times suggests that neither L.A.'s fans, nor their players, nor their covering writers are bothering to consider the possibility that their chemistry is toxic.
  • This story's gone on too long by a solid quarter, particularly for the small proportion of insight that it offers. Hopefully what did shake out was worth it.

The Blazers are back at the Moda Center tomorrow night, where they'll take the court against the Denver Nuggets. Fivethirtyeight estimates that it's going to be a good game—2:1 against Portland with a median spread of four points—and we're all wondering how the Blazers are going to answer Nikola Jokic. The Portland broadcast takes to air at 6:30 p.m. PDT.

The author would like to express his appreciation to Bill Simmons, and steely-eyed BEdger KingWes, for leading him to the Tweets included in this story.