FanPost

Game 5 vs. MIA: Shoe's on the other foot

This writer turned out to be wrong.

"If Portland's offense is even slightly warm they'll be just fine", he wrote.

Yeah, not so much. It was nearly the middle of the third quarter before the game took its final shape, but at the end it was Miami coming away with the 98-119 victory.

Recaps

How Miami won this game

Overall the game was an entertaining but stylistically mushy parade of individual performances on offense, and defense that tightened for one team while it lost steam for the other.

In other words, Miami got to play the game its way. Firepower they've got; just go look at the names on their roster. Consider the contribution of Max Strus, particularly on offense. Then as the momentum turned, Miami started forcing Portland to answer threes with twos, which made the shift obvious.

A big part of Miami's advantage was—you guessed it!—in its size and active arms. There was also no mistaking that Spo watched film and made sure his players did too; a lot of tap-outs went to Miami players uncontested, because all of the Blazers who might have caught them had already been pulled toward the baseline.

How Portland lost this game

Everything went well enough for the first 20 minutes or so of the game clock. Portland even went most of the first half with the lead, which was a pleasant departure from the trend.

However, the wheels started coming off anyway. First it was runs answered with runs. Then it was threes answered with twos. Then it was scores answered with turnovers. And then Dame went to the locker room.

Most of all, in this game the bench needed to step up. But the loss isn't really on them, because they weren't really given a chance to do that until Portland's win probability was infinitesimal. It's not that Billups or Dame or anyone else wanted it that way; Portland tried to go back to the well, only to discover Miami had demolished the path they were accustomed to taking there.

All of the following, already raised elsewhere on Blazer's Edge over this game, are true:

  • Five games in seven nights will grind down anyone's momentum.
  • Passing hasn't been particularly crisp—and this writer doesn't believe that it needs to be as a rule, as long as it's part of the plan—but last night passing was especially sloppy.
  • A number of Blazers, first among them Anfernee Simons, need to give up the ball if they're not going to take care of it. Last night they did a poor job of both.
  • Screens wanted badly for effectiveness, when they were set at all.

Timing on defense

As a goal-oriented game, basketball is a game of space and time. The team that gets to its spots first gets to dictate the terms of battle on the possession. The team that executes best gains the best expectations of success. An undertalented team that addresses this issue effectively still makes a credible opponent.

The Miami Heat are, of course, the polar opposite of undertalented. If you say "Miami won because they got to their spots more often than Portland got to theirs" then you speak the truth.

Last night's loss shouldn't be considered damning, though. For most of 245 minutes, led by Josh Hart, the Blazers have been pushing themsevles up the floor on both sides of every play. They were bound to fall off sometime. Call it an off night if you can, or regression to the mean if you must, but remember that you can't win 'em all.

The script got flipped

Recent ECF appearance by Miami notwithstanding, the narrative was all backwards going into this game: Miami had the great team on paper that was struggling, while the Blazers were the day's darling of the Western Conference.

…So Miami flipped the script back. Whatever was ailing them in their previous games was pared back for a game, hopefully longer. (Nobody who loves the game wants to see a good team in a bad slump, unless that good team is on the wrong side of a rivalry.)

The surprise is not that the Blazers—being as they are relatively unfamiliar with their present configuration—lost this game, nor that Miami's incrementally greater size won it. Rather this game displayed the value that continuity can have for a team. In that respect Miami had most of the advantages, and it showed in the way that they ground down the Blazers' offense into ineffectiveness.

Lillard's leadership

Healthy Damian Lillard is a primal force. His three-ball knows few equals. His knack for splitting the double-team in front of him borders on brilliance. His command of his personal NOX bottle has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with regularity. If he had eyes in the back of his head, the package would be inarguably complete.

On the other hand, his contract would be an albatross around the neck of most teams. The jury's still out on the question of how that works for the Blazers in the long run. However, Lillard also justifies his huge contract with his leadership.

Last night we saw the downside of that gift.

We can assign a lot of credit for last night's collapse to Miami's hard work, but there's no mistaking that the Blazers' share of that tracks closely with Lillard's awareness of his distress. Then, of course, the bottom fell out when he called it a night. This is actually a nice problem to have, but…

Last night the Universe demanded that the Blazers demonstrate their ability to play without Damian Lillard on hand to lead them, without the confidence his presence on the floor would give any team. The Blazers refused the commission, to their detriment.

Postscripts

  • Same song, second verse: this story's coming late for the same reason as the last one, namely the incipient crappiness of NBA League Pass in its present and apparently newly-baked incarnation. After that, for this writer life intervened with a vengeance, and it's with some sacrifice that this copy took priority.
  • The passing was sloppy last night, but not ruinous. In general the Blazers' passing game has been massively improved over previous seasons, because players are keeping their eyes open to see where the ball can go. The problem last night was that they were waiting too long to pass it.
  • For the first time this season a Blazers opponent gave as good as they got over fouls and free throws. That change in circumstance was a critical factor in Portland's loss of momentum and, ultimately, the game. What's ironic is that Miami beat Portland last night with a game plan recognizably similar to the ones Portland employed in their wins over Sacramento and Phoenix.

Hopefully our guys can get enough rest before they return to the Moda Center tomorrow night, 28 October, for a game against Houston. The game broadcast is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. PDT.