| That's what the Thunder said about the game, and about the Blazers.It comes on the heels of several other coaches and players making comments about the development in Portland--comments that seem to outpace the sports pundits who still consider the Blazers too young to make any serious noise in the playoffs. Their opponents are convinced, it seems! And why not, after a game like last night? Considering how to write up this at once meaningless and highly important game, in which the home team got going early against a clearly overmatched visiting squad, accelerated in the second and put the pedal to the medal in the third, I discovered I had the same thought as the boys from Blazers Edge, who gave up trying to analyze the contest in a straight-up fashion. Why even treat it that way, when it was a freak show of a contest? That's going to be my theme, then--this wasn't an NBA game, it was a carnival. As a fan watching, it was like wandering around the midway oohing and aaahing at the big Travis Wheel, the Odenator, Rudy's Revolution, The Brandon Roy Smooth-as-Butta-Churner, The Gorilla's Den--on this night, even the Fryerator was online and cooking! We've seen most of these rides in our lives already, maybe from different manufacturers in different towns--but that doesn't make these new rides, in our town, any less thrilling. You could break down why the rides are exciting, how the games are subtly and not so subtly rigged against you, and to some extent that might be interesting, even to a kid for a while. We could go through the missed rotations, slow jumps and no jumps, and draw lines between the Thunder's various defensive lapses and the multitude of highlight reel plays by the Blazers. But eventually even the most dorky hoop stats geek glazes over; they too wanna see the highlights! Just about everyone got involved tonight, offensively speaking. Heck, Michael Ruffin scored his first four points as a Blazer, which is actually really cool for him because a large group of family were there to see him tonight. Shav was inactive, Martell hurt, and neither Joel nor LaMarcus was not a big points hound, although they were instrumental in frustrating the Thunder early and starting transition after transition for quality shot attempts. {more} |
Individually I think you have to tip your cap (if you have one, as Nate says) to Travis Outlaw for the top performance of the night. You always need to be ready if called upon, and of course Trav gets a fair amount of run no matter who's sick or healthy. But he found out very late that he was going to start a contest that would require him to guard Kevin Durant at least part of the time, and surely had to prepare his mind quickly. Or maybe for Travis and his hair trigger jumpshot (that's actually not so hair-triggered anymore), it's all plug and play to him. Get the ball, shoot the ball. And you know, defensively he wasn't half bad. Durant kept finding himself in poor position to take a shot, falling backwards or off to the side of the basket, and finished well under his average with just 10 points. (Russell Westbrook, the other deservedly anointed star of the future for OKC, had a pretty good 15, but nothing like what he's capable of.) Offensively, it was probably one of my favorite Travis nights. He hit from everywhere: baseline jams, stop and pops, midlane jumpers, nutty fadeaways with clock running out. On one special play he even beat Oden to the ball on a Rudy miss where Greg was literally 2 feet from the rim, right in front with position. Oden was so perfectly placed I was sure it was his putback, but Outlaw actually came from his right, put those amazing twitch-muscles to work and outjumped everybody for the jam. It looked like any misses were well worth the hit to his FG% on this night; he was having the time of his life. "Wheeeee!" he seemed to be saying. "I'm ooooopen! Pass it tooo meeeeeeee!" Some games Travis's points are the gravedigger; tonight he was the grave-filler while the funeral was still going on, adding insult to injury and further burying the Thunder. Oden will probably hear it from Travis about getting beat to that putback, but he's got plenty to smile about himself. First and foremost is that he played 20 minutes and collected only two fouls. In his first half of work he rang up 10 and 5 with NO fouls, and was all over the court. His array of dunks was a blast to watch, but the key was his speed and energy. I keep telling people that Greg is deceptively fast, and as he matures will shock you with how often he beats defenders down court to get easy feeds, boards and tip ins. Against OKC, who seemed to care less and less as the game wore on, you'd have thought half the time he was the Thunder center, getting back. Speaking of, that almost spoiled it for me, the increasing lack of effort from the SuperThunder players as a comeback became clearly impossible. In the fourth quarter I watched Blazer shots miss, and two or three Thunder standing nearby, looking at each other while a Portlander went ahead and scooped up the board. In particular, Travis had one where he shot from the right side of the key, missed with the carom about halfway into the lane--and the players in the key stood like they were fighting Slurpee Brain Freeze. Outlaw ran to pick it up, continued his drive and layed it home with panache. On another play I was rooting for an alley oop to Oden--for what seemed like forever, because no one on OKC seemed particularly interested in looking behind them. I can't honestly say I wanted a nail biter of a game, but it's always nicer to win when the other team doesn't quit. Rudy really had a solid game as well, hitting 5-8 including 3-6 from distance. Often his shots have a key feel to them, as if they were pivotal moments in the game. (Scoring eight points in 43 seconds, or 5 in three, will cause that to happen). The game was generally too well out of hand for that to be the case in this one, but he did have a nice three to put the Blazers up 14 at the end of the first quarter, and also drained three FT on a missed trey attempt, as well as feeding others with setups in Carnival Time. Like I said, almost everyone had a strong game, whether it showed up in the stat line or not. Brandon was Brandon, driving and scoring at will but content to let others hog the ball. LaMarcus was not the stats machine he's been the last couple of weeks, but he was strong on defense and hauled down eight rebounds. This was a night where the performances were like fireworks--some bigger and louder than others, some more inducive of oooohs and aaaahs--but pops and sparks came from all directions, and were all pretty to look at. So where does the team stand with one regular season to play? On the cusp of a truly remarkable achievement: home court advantage for at least one round. If they beat Denver Wednesday night, they'll finish no better than fourth and could even make it to third. There's also a chance they could slide to 5th with a loss, but that would take...well, since Brian Hendrickson of the Columbian has done such a great job tabling the possible outcomes, I'll simply crib his work 100% below (with due credit, of course). Hope you enjoyed the festivities; get ready for more fireworks Wednesday and beyond, hopefully!
EIGHT POSSIBLE PLAYOFF SCENARIOS | Denver | Houston | Portland | San Antonio | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Portland Matchup |
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| L | W | W | W | Houston | Denver | Portland | San Antonio | | San Antonio (5) at Portland (4) | | L | L | W | L | Denver | Portland | Houston | San Antonio | New Orleans | New Orleans (6) at Portland (3) | | L | W | W | L | Houston | Denver | Portland | San Antonio | | San Antonio (5) at Portland (4) | | L | L | W | W | Denver | San Antonio | Portland | Houston | | Houston (5) at Portland (4) | | W | L | L | L | Denver | Houston | Portland | San Antonio | | San Antonio (5) at Portland (4) | | W | W | L | W | Denver | Houston | San Antonio | Portland | | Portland (5) at San Antonio (4) | | W | L | L | W | Denver | San Antonio | Houston | Portland | | Portland (5) at Houston (4) | | W | W | L | L | Denver | Houston | Portland | San Antonio | | San Antonio (5) at Portland (4) |
*Portland secures home-court advantage in the first round with a win vs. Denver (or San Antonio loss) * Portland would have home-court advantage in the first round in six of eight possible scenarios. PLAYOFF PROBABILITIES| Matchup | # of scenarios | % of possibilities |
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| San Antonio (5) at Portland (4) | 4 | 50 | | New Orleans (6) at Portland (3) | 1 | 12.5 | | Houston (5) at Portland (4) | 1 | 12.5 | | Portland (5) at San Antonio (4) | 1 | 12.5 | | Portland (5) at Houston (4) | 1 | 12.5 | | | | Portland Opponent | # of scenarios | % of possibilities |
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| San Antonio | 5 | 62.5 | | Houston | 2 | 25 | | New Orleans | 1 | 12.5 |
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