| As hoped (by me at least), I was able to watch virtually all of the home end of the Blazers' back to back, home and away double dip against Denver last night. As I understand it, last night's game looked similar to Monday's tussle in Colorado, with the notable exceptions ultimately being a supportive crowd and a win. Brandon Roy was not held under double digits as he was Monday, but in neither game did he control the action on the floor as usual. Overall, I think the Blazers have to be pretty pleased with themselves to earn the split against the team they are most closely battling right now for the division lead. From ESPN's recap (whose highlight reel took all of five seconds to 1) call Batum "Bait-em" and 2) get the score wrong), quotes by Joel Pryzbilla and Chauncey Billups that amply explain the feel of Game 2: "After last night, where they kind of took it to us and beat us up, this is a really big win for us," said Joel Przybilla, who had 19 rebounds and 10 points. "We're going to be battling with this team all season for the division."(snip) "We knew these two games would be playoff-type games," said Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups, who added 17 points on 4-of-12 shooting. "They cracked up to be just that." No doubt fellas, no doubt. I bring up Joel's comments for a couple of reasons: first, because without a doubt the Beige Primate earned the star of the game, picking up a double double that featured 19 tasty rebounds. He also faced two must-make situations at the foul line, one with the Blazers up by 3 and 2:40 to go, and even more crucially with just a minute left and a 5-point Portland edge. The 53% career foul shooter (though he's much better this year) calmly drained all four easies, and didn't even make it look hard. Secondly, as the primary big man on the team still, Pryz knows when an opponent is trying to out-physical the Blazers off the court. It's been a noticeable problem since Boston, but until Oden comes into his own I think everyone knew that toughness and physicality would be one of the issues the Blazers would need to confront if they were to step up and become a playoff team. {more, below} |
The Nuggets, even without star Carmelo Anthony who missed both games, have some beasts down low--Kenyon Martin (6'9"), Linas Kleiza (6'9"), Chris Anderson (6'10") and Nene Hilario (6'11"). Those sizes don't make them monsters simply by virtue of their height, but they play hard, aggressive ball--some might even call a little dirty. I don't necessarily begrudge them the opportunity, since it's part of the NBA culture the way NFL linemen hold on every play and anything goes in the scrum after a fumble. But if only one team is playing that way, it can get ugly. Perhaps what makes Denver so tough underneath is not their size, but the constant overcompensation necessary from a squad with names like Nene, Chauncey and Linas. What, no Cuthbert? (And a special note to Mr. Hilario--you may be Brazilian, but you're not Ronaldo...yet. Hang onto that last name for now, OK? OK.) In the first game, as Joel notes, the consensus seems to be that Denver pushed Portland around and threw the Blazers off rhythm. Brandon Roy collected eight points, matching his season-low (at Miami), but the more telling stat is that he collected 5 fouls in a season where his average isn't even two. The Nuggets were taking him on, and he was not up to the task on that night. Also notably not up to the task was Greg Oden, who fouled out and never really got much of a chance to get going. (That's one thing that didn't change last night; Oden got 5 and was literally on the court for seconds before picking most of them up). Three rebounds from the tallest guy on the floor for either team? Yecccch. As a team, the Blazers put Denver on the line 39 times, and gave them 12 O-reebs. Not good. The Nuggets took it to Portland from the beginning, and while the Blazers started out OK, they got more and more tentative as the minutes passed. Naturally this made Denver even more confident and physical. Ironically though, for most of the game the Blazers hung around and even broke to a 75-74 lead very late in the third, off a Pryz dunk. Unfortunately, on the way back Pryz fouled the human tattoo artist's practice dummy, Chris Anderson. Anderson sank the first, then missed the second--only to give up the rebound to the decidedly NOT tall Billups, who calmly dished to Kleiza at the buzzer. That made it 78-75, and it got worse for the black and red in the 4th. Over the first five minutes of the game, Kleiza hit 5 of 6 free throws, while the Blazers countered with a single Outlaw bucket (in close at least, a place where Travis usually fears to tread). And for a minute there, the gates to the lane opened--Oden dunk, Roy dunk, Travis for three, LMA dunk. That brought the Blazers within three again at 85-88, five and a half minutes to go... ...during which time Portland made exactly one more field goal and a pair of FTs. Otherwise it was a series of questionably advised deep jumpers, and some uncharacteristic non-game-saving plays by Roy. Fourteen points in a quarter, especially the 4th, just isn't going to get it done, and in fact it didn't. I bet it was frustrating to watch that game, to see an important road contest appear genuinely winnable, only to have it slip away. But I can't imagine it was more frustrating than last night, in a game that the Blazers mostly led--although God only knows how. It was, once again, a festival of long-range tries, some of which went down, inevitably leading to more. When they fall I suppose that's fine, but when it's all you've got and it goes dry, you're in trouble. About mid-quarter several of them in a row began to fall, and the Nuggets went cold, also helping out by fouling and losing the ball a number of times. As a result the Blazers built a 12-point lead and I thought maybe they'd finally take control. Not so much. In a particularly egregious stretch, Travis missed a three, Blake missed a three, Blake got stolen in the corner, missed another three, then inexplicably slapped Kenyon Martin for a foul. Not to be outdone, Brandon lost the ball to Billups, then promptly fouled him going for the loosey. Billups actually missed the second FT, and the Blazers got the last shot before halftime, to try and bring the lead back up to 7 or 8. Fittingly, Rudy tossed the ball out of bounds and the half was over, 47-42. It was the worst I have seen the Blazers play this year, and still manage to keep the lead. The third quarter was more of the same, pace and style-wise, particularly on the Nugget end: matador defense on Nene down low, late help on Kleiza out top. Portland made enough shots to stay about four points ahead for most of the stanza, but were eventually tied at 58 on a Nene dunk. Both teams closed out the quarter fairly well, and once again it seemed only possible on Planet Amazing Fortune that Portland would lead, 67-66. Dave's recap at BE for last night paints the picture: So...last night the Blazers played three mediocre quarters, not great and not bad, but then laid a 14-point stink bomb in the fourth and ended up losing to the Nuggets. Tonight the Blazers played three mediocre quarters, not great and not bad, but then pulled out a 34-point masterpiece in the final period and beat the Nuggets. You could not script it any neater. If this were wrestling the two opponents would meet next month in a cage match to settle the feud. I'm not entirely sure that shouldn't happen anyway, given the level of physicality these two teams inspire in each other.
I suppose mediocre is the best word when you still end up ahead on the scoreboard, and your opponent is in that big second tier in the West, but with the team barely hanging on and a Roy resurgence seeming unlikely, I had to wonder if it would be two steps back after such a big leap forward against the Suns. Silly me. Roy didn't tear the nets off the hoop in the 4th, but you could tell he was back in control. The game remained tight, but when Brandon drained a bigtime 25-footer to put Portland up 82-80, I felt something shift. No, check that; I actually felt it a few moments before, as Chris Anderson drew the T for jawing at Pryz all the way down the court after JR Smith finally Travis-ed his way to a bucket. Sergio(!) made the T and the Blazers were down by one still, and it wasn't like there was suddenly a big statement made, but Anderson's reaction made it plain: the Nuggets were tiring, and the intimidation game wasn't working. Joel had simply refused to take any more of Anderson's shit lying down. Whether it lifted the rest of team similarly or not I can't say, but from that point on Denver looked like they were hoping to come back from a deficit instead of trying to out-execute the Blazers in a tight game. The rest of the way, the Blazers made just two shots down the stretch again, albeit including a sweet three by Blake over Kenyon Martin that even had Kenyon offering props on the way back down. When you have a team on the ropes, you have to put them away, and ordinarily with 4 points off FG in the last six minutes of the game you're going to lose--unless you're driving the hoop and getting fouled instead of making the shots. Of course, you then have to make the foul shots. The good guys went 11 of 12 down the stretch, including those four big ones from Joel. It included another T shot by Brandon (making him Chalupa Man, amusingly pushing Outlaw off the line, who had been readying to take his own foul shots), the result of Billups losing his cool like Anderson. Travis was so mad he missed the first free, but drained the second and that was the ballgame. Afterwards, Billups called Portland "one of the best teams in the NBA at home," and while that obviously must be true at 10-2, it sounded as if Billups didn't believe it until after the game. High praise, and an excellent sign for the future. It also seemed like an epiphany for the Blazers, that playing clean and being good guys is important, but certain teams are going to try and take advantage and sometimes a few jaws are going to have to meet flying elbows in order to get them to back off. Tomorrow night I wish for all of you a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and another big home win over the Dallas Mavericks on TNT. They need two of these last three (Toronto and Boston being the others) to get to 20 wins in 2008, leaving 30 the rest of the way to make it to 50 wins. That means it's either gotta be Boston or Dallas if the Raptors are the "easy" game, so a win in hand against the Mavs would be mighty helpful. |
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