I'm doing a pretty good job so far in picking home games to attend: Minnesota, the 2nd Houston game, and now versus Phoenix last night, a game in which the Blazers stormed back from a 15-point 3rd quarter deficit and set the Garden to rocking with a dominant coming-out-party for sophomore guard Jerryd Bayless in the 4th quarter.
We'll start with the NBA.com highlights, then chat below the fold. And hey, for you political junkies there's even a tie-in with former state Senator Margaret Carter!
The most obvious takeaway from the game is that Bayless came out like Scarlett O'Hara at the debutante's dance, blowing away his previous career high and literally taking the game into his own hands late--scoring 16 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, 15 of them in just seven minutes and with a couple of simply crucial gut-check shots and free throws. It was like watching Brandon Roy's little brother, smaller and faster and still with a lot to learn, but also possessing of that delightfully charming intensity that youth tends to afford.
That's not to say Bayless is a Roy clone, or to intimate that they have currently equal skills or basketball IQ. For one thing, Roy had himself a pretty damned good game too, and the attention necessarily paid to an established star down the stretch certainly helped Bayless find his looks and gain confidence, knowing that a Brandon-brand security blanket was firmly wrapped around his shoulders as he played.
B-Rex's offensive explosion certainly tickled the coaches as they sat courtside contemplating the suit vs. uniform ratio on the bench. There are a lot of broken bodies in Armani these days, and keeping 9 healthy ones fresh and happy is a damningly tough job. But although consistent scoring punch is definitely on the list of Christmas wishes for the Blazers, specifically from Bayless the coaching staff has been looking for more: an outside shot, enough court awareness to use his driving ability as a decoy or a foul generator, and hustle defense at the other end.
To rely on one of my many references to other sports in order to explain basketball: the kind of play the coaches hadn't yet seen and needed to see before entrusting major minutes to Bayless, is the kind that leads football coaches to hold back a hot young running back who can't protect his QB on a blitz, or a baseball player who hits a home run every 10 AB but can't advance the runner on an out and shows poor plate discipline by striking out more often than Tiger Woods on EHarmony.
But last night was the revelation. Bayless looked confident if not masterful in all phases of the game, with and without the ball and on defense. It may be surprising to speak of confidence-paucity when it comes to JayBay, for in limited minutes to this point if there's one thing about Bayless' game it's his supreme confidence that he can get to the rack whenever he wants. But after the bucket--or often the jammed shot and missed open teammate--Rex has understandably struggled for his inexperience.
It was as if he'd placed the final puzzle piece on the board, the one that connected all the disparate things he wasn't seeing in the still-incomplete picture of his game. When he laid down that last piece and saw what the picture was, something clicked: "Ohhhhhh, NOW I get it! If I can learn to dish at the last minute after drawing so much attention, someone else will have an easy shot! And if I don't have a good pass I can make, I could ALSO just outhustle my defender to the basket and likely draw a foul. And, and! If I can hit a couple of outside jumpers, they won't know whether to pack the key or hound me on the perimeter--meaning I can drive OR shoot more easily because of their confusion."
How Bayless will fit into the scheme of things with an expanded role-and whose minutes he'll end up taking--is sportswriter fodder for another day. And maybe that pressure for adequate floor time for everybody will once again yield chemistry issues down the road.
But there is one thing that the coaches don't talk much about, but which fans sense easily: there's joy on the court again. Not just because Bayless is more animated than Daffy Duck on three cans of Rockstar, although that certainly helps. An infectious mood is good, but the far more valuable infection Bayless gives to his team is the Movement Virus.
When Bayless does his thing, the court opens up like one of Tiger's mistresses with a book advance. (Damn, two Tiger jokes in one piece? You shouldn't have to pay for this.) And that's true at both ends. When he hustles and shows his can't-touch-this nose for theho op, Roy notices. Martell feels it. LaMarcus and Joel feed off it. Even Steve Blake, perhaps coincidentally but I think not, suddenly found his stroke and confidence last night and once again began draining open threes.
And boy, do the fans ever notice. That place was ROCKIN' last night.
There are some who will call for Bayless to immediately begin occupying the starting point guard role, sending Steve Blake to the bench in some kind of mix with Andre Miller. And before we address what should happen, let's talk about what might be likely to happen.
Blake had probably his best game of the year against the Suns, and along with Martell keyed the comeback in the fourth quarter with two major threes, making Bayless' winning run possible. And while he is not blessed with quick reaction muscles to my eye and thus gets beaten on the dribble and screens an awful lot, he is never lazy in his defense. His tenaciousness leads to spurts of passable defense, and when his outside shot is on he provides really all the Blazers need from him.
...which, when you think about it, can be done just as easily in 20 minutes as in 40, which is about what he's getting even though he's not "starting" the last two games. Forcing a little efficiency on him might get rid of the extra-super-long dribble sessions in the halfcourt set, too.
But Blake's not getting 20, he's getting 40 as I said--so the guy who stands to take on the Bayless role, the guy who gets a little run and sits back down until someone gets into foul trouble, is Andre Miller. Now, as good a game as Blake had Thursday, Miller's was mediocre, and Miller did get poked in the eye early but returned and was still bad. So Dre getting the short end of the minutes makes some sense there. But if Bayless were not hot, would Miller have picked up his late minutes?
And that, in typically longwinded fashion, is why the "who starts" game is functionally irrelevant at this point. They play three guards much of the time, and with nine guys everybody's getting some extra burn, as when Roy moves up to SF. As we've seen, "starter" Andre Miller may get half the minutes of "reserve" Steve Blake, or "third string" Bayless may get a surprise 30. Do the role labels matter anymore?
But in that case, the minutes have to come on merit--and as we've said, there's nothing that Blake is accomplishing in 40 minutes a game that he can't get done in 25-30--and considering his season so far, that's still a pretty generous run. Andre Miller is outplaying just on his ability to get to the rim, make some midrange jumpers and draw fouls. His defense is not great and he turns the ball over, but so does Steve.
So a healthy Miller last night, in my fantasy as Nate McMillan, by rights should have gotten another 10-12 minutes to play, at Blake's expense. That's still healthy numbers for everyone: Roy 42, Bayless 29, Blake 28, Miller 27. And frankly, in games where it's not nip and tuck in the fourth quarter, Roy's 42 better come down into the high 30s if we don't want a broken shell of a man in April. Give Blake those minutes, for heaven's sake.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not Nate McMillan. I cannot make this happen. But having the game on national television really puts an interesting dynamic on this development with Bayless. Charles Barkley all but called Nate out on the postgame, saying Rex was "way better than some of those other guys they got." You think he's talking about Brandon Roy? [nervous cough]. Does Nate have the stones if he really doesn't think Bayless is ready for a big upgrade in minutes, to put Blakey out there night after night and have Charles follow him around the country saying, "Just turrible, Kenny--turrible?"
We shall see, we shall see.
I promised you a political tie in: honored at the game was former state Senator Margaret Carter, who presided over the area of N/NE Portland encompassing the Rose Garden. On Wednesday the Portland City Council declared it Margaret Carter Day, and honored her in an emotional ceremony. Carter was also awarded in 2008 by the Blazers' Heart of the Community program, and her story is an amazing one from the day she arrived in Portland in 1967. Loaded Orygun congratulates Senator Carter, and thanks her for her years of service back to her community.
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