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.
I suppose if you're going to set the standard that you beat West teams by 20 in your house (cf Suns, Grizzlies, Spurs, Lakers), it's not so unreasonable to expect to beat them by, oh, 35 on the road. Is it? I mean, is it too much to ask to turn on the television on Friday night with a welcome-to-the-weekend beverage and be rewarded by having your favorite team thrash an opponent like they got paid by the margin of victory? After all, don't super-young teams with no playoff stretch experience--much less actual playoff experience--routinely start bulldozing teams on a nightly basis in late March and April no matter the opponent?
(The answers to the two questions are: of course, you unrealistic ninny; and flatly no way.)
We'll talk about the hometown heroes in a moment, but I'm still not sure what to think about the former Sonics down in the oilbelt now. They clearly think they're on their way to being worldbeaters, as this interesting broadcaster-as-team-motivator article from Mike Barrett explains, and do have two legitimate stars in the making in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. And while their record is a dismal 21-54, they have some quality wins (like beating the Blazers a month ago in OKC and the Spurs in SA a couple of nights ago) and have of late been playing much better ball.
Yet last night they looked utterly clueless. There were so few things they did well, and while in many ways it's a testament to a Blazers team that has simply stepped it up several notches in all areas, the thing that kept recurring to me as I watched Portland dismantle the Thunder was, "Geez, these guys really kind of suck." For one thing, their shooting is just awful. They take all kinds of ridiculous shots, throw themselves at the hoop to draw fouls (which is good), but don't get any kind of rhythm or team play going. It's KD or Westbrook busting the lane, scooping and juking all the way, trying to make some crazy off balance iso shot. Which frankly, they do a fair bit of the time in a very Travis kind of way.
But--and again, due credit to the Blazers who completely shut the paint down--that kind of offense is easier to defend in the long run, easier to ignore the bit players in that drama, and really leaves you up a creek if the shots aren't falling. The last time in that building, they did--the big duo took 34 shots and made half of them, for 41 total points. Last night? Five for 21(!!) and 21 points. Note particularly the serious dropoff in shots taken; they don't go in if they don't go up.
It sorta felt like a rivalry game against the old Sonics, which I suppose technically it was. I thought I saw Jack Sikma rolling down the lane a couple times, but it was actually Nenad Krstic, one of those amazing-courage stories of a young Eastern Bloc child born with a genetic vowel deficiency. Oh, except I never saw Sikma get faced by Greg Oden like that, so the image didn't last.
There was definitely green and gold in the Garden against the Oklahoma City Thunder last night, and I believe I even saw most of a row's worth of sad-faced but promotionally decked out OKC fans, or perhaps they were just people paid to represent road OKC fans--America's Team! But no matter the color scheme or the personnel, or the budding rivalry that as Greg Oden says "some want to make it into" about himself vs Kevin Durant, the most important colors were black and red, and the meal on the menu tasted like revenge.
For the second straight outing, the Blazers outplayed an inferior opponent for at least 75% of the game, and suffered only the natural bursts of their own coldness, or an opponent's hot hand. It was the second straight game where more often than not the right personnel were matched up defensively, the paint was protected, and the boards ultimately secured and second chance points minimized when it counted.
The great thing about the way the schedule worked out is that the Knicks at home proved the perfect test to set up the Thunder coming in off a back to back first game against the L*kers. The Blazers were genuinely disgusted with their effort in Oklahoma City, and used the Knicks to regain their composure. Bayless admitted in postgame interviews that no doubt they were thinking of last Friday's game, when OKC finally arrived.
I'm betting right now the Thunder don't win either of the next two games against Portland. The Blazers are likely to take OKC more seriously than any other team in the league for the rest of the season. No way are they going to let OKC sneak one in on them again. You'd ideally shoot for a 3-1 series against a bottom dweller, and with that first loss out of the way in shocking fashion, it's a mighty good motivation to go ahead and get those three wins and walk away happy.
You know how sometimes you balk at saying something that's bugging you, because you know if you get started you'll probably say something rash that you'll regret, so it's better not to say anything at all? That's me with this recap. Do I even want to get started on this loss to quite literally the worst team in the National Basketball Association? Heck, editorially speaking, by italicizing that last part I already am.
Gracious, what does one say after a game like that? Where do you go, after "worst effort of the season by far, with the possible exception of the first game against both LA teams?" And while both were embarrassing, nobody really expected a win against the Lakers, and the Clips game kinda got away from them. Against Oklahoma City the Blazers were never in it, only varying in their degree of distance behind them. They may be better than the Clippers at this point, but it's close. The best word to describe the effort would be desultory.
At least it was a team loss in the truest sense, in that the only blameless actors were Ike, Channing and Shav--and I'm sure if Nate had put them in, they'd have done something dumbass too. Let's see:
Sergio--1 AST, 2 TO, 3 PF, desultory defense, 8 points
Bayless--ditto, except 0-3 from the field and slightly better D
Roy--tried to carry the team, bless him, but how many chunked layups are possible in a game like that?
LaMarcus--43 minutes, most of the 2nd half the tallest Blazer on the floor...6 rebounds, one offensive.
Travis--pretty good shot actually, but ice from three, four big TO, two crucial FT misses late, and that desultory defense
Rudy--1-6 (1-5), 3 AST in 24 minutes. !! He was overlooked by Trav repeatedly down the stretch, but not for 24 minutes.
Joel--dude is a battler, but poor guy is a helpless liability on offense right now...and on this night I saw him laze on the boards a little.
Nic--couldn't can the shot early, and looked strangely awkward all game. Class disappear game for him.
Ah, Mr. Oden. So rookielicious, still.
Mr. Greg Oden, unfortunately half of the marquee sell for the game against Kevin Durant's team, the team that "settled" for Durant after Portland took Oden, tonight topped being punked by Hilton Armstrong and Brandon Bass by getting a prostate exam from Nick Collison, career 8/7 PF at 6-10.
I saved Oden for last, because his struggles in this game seemed to slowly infect the entire team for the course of the road trip, until finally in this game everyone was in the same funk he was. For this game was, after, merely the continuation of a pattern that began in New Orleans and remained in Dallas: let the home team torch you in the first, then go totally cold on offense in the second. Fight back all second half, only having success in the event of a strained groin.
Like I said, against Oklahoma I think I saw Joel dogging it, or at least being so late that he just had to give up. Which was better than what Oden was doing--not giving up--but seemed affective. Greg's feet were ultra slow tonight, and he was totally off rhythm at the offensive end. Nick Collison!! This was a game tailor made for Brutus Greg to show up and make all dunky dunky with the ball on Nick Collison. What on earth happened?
What happened is the other reason Greg's troubles mimicked the rest of the team's: they were often partially at fault for Oden being in trouble. When Sergio or Rudy's or Roy's dude blows free and easy into the paint, Oden has to try to at least make an effort in that direction. He's committing, and committing late, but forcing the guy into so many help situations is just devastating their defensive ability. It has a domino effect on everything else they want to do. Yes, the screen switching is a big deal too, but to me it all flows from Oden being put in unfair positions--but paradoxically needs to be able to beat unfair positions in order to be great.
And that's where it all lies for the team as well. The group as a whole is further ahead than Greg in overall development, but the team has the same lesson to heed: in this league, playoff teams need to be able to adjust to and overcome unfair positions. Injury, refs, unexpected offnights, rookies--doesn't matter. There just aren't any excuses left after a game like that against Oklahoma. No, it's not the end of the season, nor as yet a harbinger of last year's collapse after winning 13 in a row.
The Blazers will get a chance to avenge this serious embarrassment in two games, back at the Garden. If they don't molest OKC in that contest, I'm not sure what to think.
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