You know how some shots just feel like "the dagger?" That point where the opposition mentally folds up their tents? In most games, even if it's sometime in the third quarter--perhaps to stop the last best run with a killer three--there's a point where you say, "Man, that's the dagger, right there."
That's true of most games--they have a dagger. Others, the kind that really good teams play against really bad ones, don't. They are the death of a thousand cuts. If there was a dagger in the Blazers' game against the woeful and hurting LA Clippers, it probably came in the first quarter, because after getting out 38-16 in 12 minutes there just wasn't enough in the tank for the Clips to come back.
So as Dave from Blazer's Edge says in his recap, this was one quarter of great, meaningful basketball, and three quarters of stat filler and highlight reel stuff, with minimal adversity to their supremacy. Given that, and given the pretty historic and singular nature of that first quarter, we'll recap the game just by reviewing the first quarter in detail.
rom the Blazers standpoint, this game was virtually a carbon copy of the previous one against the Wizards. Or, the liveblog if you prefer. They did reasonably well in the first half offensively, especially the first quarter, but fell behind on a rain of made threes and second chance points. They got the lead back and really didn't seem troubled, but at the same time couldn't shake a clearly inferior team, staying within that 4-7 margin. The team is mostly doing things well, but there are one or two major glaring holes in their game that are keeping Portland in it.
...and then the air in the other team's bubble slowly starts to leak like the tires on my bike after lending it to Diogu. Shots start falling for the Blazers, the good luck charm rubs itself out for the opponents and balance returns there, Portland starts drawing some fouls, and that drive attention allows the shooters to finally wake up from distance and it's an easy win by about midway through the fourth.
There are some definite nuances we'll get into below the fold, but this one is likely to be filed mentally by the team in exactly the same bin as the Washington game Saturday: expected win, no excuse to lose so no cookie for the win. Still some disturbing things like YGMYFT and switch/perimeter defense, but in the end the team comes through as they should and get the win as the better team. It felt good I'm sure, it avenged what was probably the most embarrassing loss of the year (especially in the Garden, for shame!), it kept the streak going into the Charlotte game, and now the tenacious but overmatched 'Cats can be the springboard for the big Utah grudge match, the Jazz leading 2-0 but seeing the Gahden for the first time this year. Rip it, baby!
And oh yeah, there was this. I understand the Clips' Samb, a Senegalese, speaks five languages. I'd love to hear all five of them saying the words, "In yo FACE, beyotch!"
Well, I'm done using Firefox 3.05 for composing posts; on my (admittedly laptop Vista) PC the thing is a crash machine, and unlike 3.04 if it crashes it no longer saves what's in the text entry boxes. So after an hour's dilligent dissection of the increasingly disconcerting Blazer play in December, encapsulated in the 120-112 loss to the LA Clippers, you'll never guess what happened! Grrrrr....
But surely you don't pay me to grouse about equipment failure; you want insight! entertainment! and copious steaming piles of dropped knowledge. That's what you pay me for. Heyyyy, wait a minute--you don't pay me at all! You'll get my incoherent meta ramblings, and you'll like it.
If you want the most complete analysis of the game, as usual you need to check out the game reaction and media row review from the guys at Blazer's Edge. Dave's game reac is a little brief for this one, given his own equipment problems in reporting the game, but he did get to see the epic fail at the end, and Ben's media piece is complete with comments from Nate (who was surprisingly calm and semi-upbeat. Probably thinking about his bed and smiling).
By now you know the usual suspects of a Blazers loss--failing to get back on D after a miss or even an involved make, a slow step to cover the low post and an uneven job preventing offense from the block, poor perimeter shooting and a troubling tendency to become Brandon Roy and the Four Suspended Animatees in the fourth quarter.
It's one thing to watch guys like Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh drop hooks and short jumpers over Oden and LaMarcus, but for a variety of reasons it's an ugly thing to watch Z-Bo do it. On the other hand, Oden was great on the glass, and offensively his shot was working better. LaMarucs was also good on the boards, and hit a variety of jumpers but bogged down late trying to man up down low as the sole alternative to Roy going all the way.
And the ballhawking on the boards had its own cost, since it was part of the reason easy baskets transpired so often down on the other end. The smalls in particular--guys like Sergio and Rudy, but also Bayless, Blake and Batum were caught napping at various times.
The team now gets some much, much MUCH needed rest, off until Tuesday at home for their third tussle against the Kings of Sacramento, so watch for your favorite Blazer in a snowball fight outside the practice facility this weekend.
Being on sick leave today is kind of double edged sword for the blog: I'm at home rather than at work, which means I can post whenever I like...but I'm at home sick, meaning I'm more likely to prefer sleeping or moaning quietly in a chair while mourning Bob Barker's departure as I watch the new host of Price is Right not being as good as Bob Barker.
So like me, perhaps the Blazer-afflicted among you are ready to move on from a thoroughly disappointing and reality-calibrating loss at Utah's "EnergyCenter" arena. It certainly was no center of energy for the Blazers, who were as kinetically diffuse as they were off-kilter. "A step late and two inches off center" would about describe the way Portland played on defense and offense last night, respectively. Forty-four Jazz points in the paint, six-of-27 shooting from distance for the Blazers are the data backing up the sentiment.
RSS Feed: http://www.loadedorygun.net/rss/rss2.xml
