Before I get all rhapsodical over everything, let's make sure the facts don't get short shrift: The Portland Trail Blazers completed their best regular season since 1999-00, and made the playoffs for the first time in six years with the crucial (homecourt) fourth seed. They finished by beating the Denver Nuggets 104-76, in a game where the Nuggets appeared to learn midway of the game's seeding meaninglessness to Denver, who was locked in as #2 by virtue of Houston's loss and San Antonio's OT win (damn that James Posey!)
The Blazers will open this Saturday eveneing against Houston, the fifth seed, in Portland at the Garden. Tuesday night will also be there, and then two games will go down in Houston before (presumably) they'll come back here for Game 5 and alternate as necessary for the next two.
You up to speed now? Fully briefed? OK.
There's a deeper reason I've been covering the Blazers this year, although not a hidden one; I've said before that I sensed this season was building to something special. I got excited during the 13-game run last year, and I did the first Blazer coverage at Loaded Orygun during that time. Enjoy it or wish there were more politics, there's no way to deny the Blazers as a notable Oregon story, not just by virtue of their being the only game in town.
I expected a great story--the rebuilding of a team that had lost its way and in the process its community and fanbase, but admitted its faults and started fresh, from players to coaches to management. And how about that, this scrappy young team managed to sneak into the playoffs to get waxed by the Lakers in 5! That's awesome, I thought. Good story, worth following.
If someone you know is saying they predicted home court in Round 1 back in November, slap them for lyin'. I called 50+ wins a solid likelihood on December 4th, and a month later pegged it at 51. But friends would have slapped me stupid (not a long journey, I know) if I'd gone on about the Blazers getting one of the top four seeds. Utah? NO? Dallas? Houston? Portland's gonna finish ahead of them?
And what about the division? I don't know if people have fully grasped this, but the Blazers are 100% within their rights--and will have a banner--to declare their Northwest Division (co) Championship. The seeding only happens for the playoffs; for purposes of winning the division it's a tie. Heck, if the NBA wised up and used something like point differential, the Blazers would be the #2 seed instead.
So I had a hunch, and hoped that something really good was happening, something that would not only recapture the town's heart no matter the result, but which might even stretch beyond the Rose City and generate discussion across the country.
The appeal of the story has exceeded any fan's wildest dreams. There are perhaps greater achievements yet to come for this franchise and this core group of guys, but this year is like seeing the Beatles in Hamburg, or knowingly scoring tickets to THAT week of Ed Sullivan. You can say you saw them when, you saw what they might do, before they did it.
And now it's penetrated: the rest of the league is talking about "nobody wants to face Portland," and their potential to be a serious sleeper in the West in trying to get past the Rockets and then the Lakers. Brandon Roy was Player of the Week, and Oden is being recognized at least for being a solid post defender, having graduated from being a total bust to simply not being Patrick Ewing or Bill Russell.
The cute little team that could, in short, did. Their story is going bigtime, and I wanted to be there to cover it as it broke. That's worked out pretty well, eh?
That's what Spurs star Tony Parker said about the victorious Blazers after they had stunned San Antonio and their crowd, coming back from 19 down to win handily by 12--he said the Spurs played a team "younger and more athletic than us." There's no arguing the younger part, but for the most athletic Spur to admit that they don't match up in quickness, agility and endurance is high praise.
On the other hand, what was he going to say? All he can do is think about the fading window on his team as they blow a strong 2nd seed in the West and are now fighting a three way tie--Blazers included--behind the L$kers and Denver, who seem to have clinched their spots.
Meanwhile, as the Spurs slide down the leaderboard they're passing the Blazers on their way up. You may remember the Blazers as that team that invited San Anton up to the great PNW, where they promptly opened up an astonishing 64-37 halftime lead on the visitors enroute to an 18 point victory, 102-84. Sorry, them's the breaks; say hi to Utah and New Orleans on your way down. And maybe you can still see Phoenix from Dallas' house in 8th place--sort of like Sarah Palin, across the playoff-nonplayoff border!
Where was I? Oh yes, younger and more athletic. What a happy place to be in, where the teams that are as young and athletic as you are aren't as talented, and the experienced and more talented teams aren't as young or athletic! And that's basically where the Blazers stand right now: when they step on the court, if they execute their game plan properly and perform to their abilities for even 30-35 minutes a game, not even the Clevelands, the Bostons or the LAs represent an unwinnable challenge.
Now is that execution a given every night? Not yet, but you can teach mental toughness and earn it through experience--and I would aver that we're seeing this process develop beautifully right now. You can't, however, teach Travis Outlaw to jump like the Geico money stack is under his feet, like he did last night in the 3rd quarter, getting some serious vertical not once but TWICE to grab a mid-lane rebound before any Spur even managed to jump once.
The whole team doesn't have to be great defenders, but everybody has to play TEAM defense. I think of d like the offensive line in football. Four of five guys can play perfectly, but one guy lets his man through and it's disaster...when Outlaw defends, he can do well. His problem is not deciding to defend, and that's where IMO he needs the oncourt leadership from Roy. Rudy, too...This team is not even 75% of where they can peak offensively, and if they do they're only going to need passable team D. Believe it or not, THIS GROUP can play enough D to win, if they help and show effort every trip.
Well send me to the salon and paint my nails Prescient Pink! The Blazers played more than passable defense; they forced the Spurs to confront whatever it was--lack of respect and preparation, focus on this game instead of the back end of the back to back--that put them behind early and never let them get back into it.
The Spurs are still a great defensive team; they adjusted well in the 2nd half and began doubling guards and crashing the boards a little better. But on offense, nothing worked that the Spurs tried adjusting to, in order to solve Portland's team defense. The hole was just too deep, and starters for both teams missed much of the 4th quarter under blowout conditions.
And so, Exhibit A: yes, THIS GROUP can play defense well enough to win--all they have to do is play it TOGETHER, and use hustle and a willingness to do the hard work of defending to see them through. They can do so, in point of fact, even without Greg Oden's game-changing floor dynamic.
Which, while I'm patting myself on the back for having a timely game to back up my argument on team D, is probably the best time to recant a statement I made a few games ago, and re-evaluate based in part on some of the same tenets of baseketball faith I was preaching to the unbelievers just over 24 hours ago. I am risen!...to the den to complete my Blazers recap!
If you're a regular reader you're more likely than not also routine visitors to Blazer Dave and Ben of BlazersEdge, who now routinely find themselves cited as news sources in national sports publications like ESPN.com. (The issue that Henry Abbot and Ben are talking about there is actually something I was going to post on tomorrow.) For me the sun doesn't stop shining on their asses when it comes to the NBA and the Blazers--although I'm not so awed as to forbid myself to disagree with them on a particular subject.
I'll pretend that I'm not so much disagreeing with Dave on the takeaway from tonight's loss to the Spurs, as I am filling in the blanks of a first half where the DirectTV feed was lost for many folks, that he admits leaves a certain hole in his perspective. But I do have a more optimistic (or brutal) viewpoint on what exactly led to the loss.
Dave's thesis seems to be mostly that the answer to Portland's loss lies in the gulf between the Spurs and the Blazers that is painfully evident to watch, predicated almost entirely on the mantra of proper defensive execution, a mantra that comes in many ways only with experience and lots of teamwork in high-pressure situations. But beyond that, the poise, physicality, energy, hustle, reliance on fundamentals--God, are the Spurs fundamental!--these are the things that still separate the teams, and explain why San Antonio continues to be a nightmare no matter where we play them.
See, here's the thing: I don't disagree with any of that. There's no doubt when you watch them together, when push comes to shove the Spurs are better coached, better talented from a pure, how-to-play-NBA-ball perspective, and better executing as a team. This is not really a disappointment, superficially; the Spurs are in fact likely the 2nd best team in the West and probably round out the top 5 in the Association.
So if all that's true, what's my beef? Having watched the whole game--and maybe that doesn't make a difference, because I don't quite see what Dave saw in the 2nd half we both watched anyway--all that stuff about the gap between the teams isn't why Portland lost. Portland lost because Tony Parker is among the elite game changers in this league, and because the Blazers missed OPEN shot after OPEN shot to an extent they could no longer overcome by the fourth quarter.
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