Almost everything that makes Portland so notable occurred in this game, and particularly occurred in the 2nd quarter against Denver. About the only things it did NOT have were a starmaking offensive performance by Brandon Roy, or a dominant points game from LaMarcus Aldridge as we've seen of late. But that's part of the story too, because it emphasizes what a team game the Blazers play, where Roy and LMA combine for just 14 points and the rest of the squad drops 90 and wins by 28. That's depth with a D. In fact, no starter finished in double digits. Not one of them. Blake was high man among the initial five, with nine. Cut Batum some slack, he was sick with strep but still put in some minutes and had three points. The bench scored SEVENTY-TWO points. That's insane. I don't know what the record is, but short of a coach punishing his starters and the unknown bench getting a fluke inspirational win, this has to be right up there in the annals of the NBA. Seventy-two? A fair bit of it was garbage, but those same guys earned every bit of garbage time by making that luxury possible. Remember waaay back to the trading deadline, when every sane Blazer fan was gunning for some kind of deal, even if it sacrificed good guys and chemistry pieces like Sergio, Channing Frye and Travis Outlaw? Remember that? And how GM Kevin Pritchard opted in the end to stick with who he had, and leave all three guys intact with the team? That had to mean a lot to each of them, and guess who won the game for the bench that won the game? Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye and Travis Outlaw. Sergio was electric. I've certainly never confessed to being overly impressed with S-Choc's game, although it's pleasant to watch, intermittently brilliant and the closest thing to a pure point guard the team has. But against the Nuggets the team had spectacular flow, and when he was unable to find a dish he finished strong to the hoop himself. Dude had seven points in 18 minutes, but it's the 12 big assists that catch your eye. That's a 30+ assist pace for a guy playing 40 minutes, which is of course a ridiculous game total. But if he'd been the main PG for a highly competitive game, he would have gotten every one of those 30 assists in this one. My favorite sequence of the game was when Sergio ran on a break off a miss and got to the rim, where the extremely hard to watch Chris Anderson blocked it off the glass--once it had hit the glass already as it turns out, which is an automatic goaltending but which wasn't called. As the Nuggets came upcourt, Anderson woofed and duckwalked his way past the Blazers bench. He had to do a lot of backing up quickly as the Blazers came right back at him. He was in prime position, and leapt to forcefully reject Sergio's drive to the hoop. Except Sergio was ready, and stopped dead two feet from the rim. Anderson had to arch to keep from knocking Rodriguez down entirely, and in the process sailed by him. Sergio calmly waited for the tattoo storm to pass, and dropped in the layup. No woofing necessary. Channing Frye was so good tonight, if you squinted he looked exactly like LaMarcus. He was an offensive force, with a whole set of shots over guys and off the wings, out top and beyond the arc. He hit a couple of baseliners in traffic that made you sit up and rub your eyes. Channing? Zat you? 12 points on 5-7 shooting, four reebs including a nice offensive + putback in the 2nd quarter when he was a big key on offense, the Blazers going +18 from the end of the first to halftime. He got the coveted postgame Haarlow chat, and jokingly declared himself "the Glue." A nickname was born. I feel great for Channing, who has endured a lot of personal achievement deficit this year, but is reaping the rewards for his patience and team effort. And then there's Travis. Nine points of his 21 points and all three rebounds in the 2nd quarter, inclduing a money three to open the 2nd that gave them a nice cushion to start right off with at 26-22. He also drew two fouls, but his true value was hidden in the defense. Yes, that's right, Travis earns a star not just for trying harder than Travis tries sometimes (or used to), but for legitimately playing star-quality defense against a key opposing player. This was another big opportunity for Outlaw to deliver as he did against the Thunder in a starting role. With Batum still sick it was imperative for Travis to handle Carmelo Anthony at least a little bit. If Anthony made it to the rim a lot, the game would have become significantly more difficult. Travis was not quite as good as Nic, but he was able to swallow up the minutes Nic couldn't take, and he had some excellent stand up defense of Anthony. The entire team packed tightly under the rim and dared Denver's playmakers to take it to the hoop. They obliged repeatedly, particularly Melo, who was clearly getting frustrated. I'll buy that Jason Terry is the best Sixth Man in the country, but Outlaw deserves an awful lot of love from any kind of contest like that. He's like a soda machine that gives you two cokes after you put in a nickel, like someone's already pre-paid but left the goodies for you. It's always an unexpected--and very cool--surprised. Greg Oden also had a strong defensive game even though he only had four bounds and 10 points, making sure the hits being dished out were coming FROM him and not TO him--and how can we forget Rudy? The other half of the Armada sent the home country fans into a tizzy by hitting his 159, record-setting three by a rookie in the NBA. It broke Kerry Kittles record of 158, and coming off a give and go with Sergio, it brought the Garden down in elation. I frankly don't know what Denver was thinking, during that period in which they tried. Somewhere late in the third quarter, a couple of things happened: the whole team had learned by then of their insoluble seed situation--they were the #2 no matter what; the Blazers had made another push to get the lead back into double digits and more; and after a hard bit of contact Anthony started clutching body parts. Old Karl kalled time out, and that was it for the starters. But while they were in there, they did almost none of what works for them, and what works very well against the Blazers. Their bigs did not attack the rim, so the perimeter players were supposed to pick up the slack or find impossible lead baseball passes for two on the break. All you need to know about their drive inside was that they average about 30 FT a game, which is huge. Tonight they took just 16. That's a huge part of their game, and they only rarely were able to exploit it. So with the early bail by the Nuggets, it's a little hard to call this shellacking a serious victory of the kind the Blazers might see in the playoffs. But there was something to play for and achieve, if only the Blazers worked together to achieve it. For the second straight week in a national game, they impressed the pants off the TV watching world by taking care of business against teams that don't mess around. And now this little journal of their games along the way, is part of the record of that achievement. Here's to an amazing regular season, 54-28, and the same peaking Blazers we saw the last two weeks of the season. Uprise, Rip City! |
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