I think some folks are going overboard with the possible in-team drama speculation. They've played a lot of games in a short amount of time. Easy opponents or not. Fatigue has set in. You can see it. Most of us experience that at work. You get a little burned out, not on your A-game. It happens. They need a nice three or four day break and they'll be fine.
Personally, I'm with you. No time to practice (because you don't get more than a day off) and no time to rest means eventually you peter out. Luckily, there's five off days (starting today) on either side of the Miami game that will help.
Well it won't be an excuse for long. Two days off (today and tomorrow) before Miami, and three days off after. Our schedule is really weird this year; look at March 14-31: A game each Sunday, then 4 days off after, 3 days off, 2 days off. Hell, the 3 days off is followed by a home game, then a back-to-back on the road. Who the hell made this schedule? Anyway, there's a reason Roy leads the league in minutes; he's played one more game than the rest of the league, so he's 36 minutes ahead of everyone. Luckily, that'll end and we'll see who is right and who is dead.
Is it not a plain and simple fact that we've played more games than any other team so far? Who else has played 19 games this season already? (Answer: no one; next closest teams are all at 17.) Whether or not that's the reason or excuse, who really knows. But there's no disputing that we've played more games in this short stretch than any other team. As BlazerCaravan said, we'll see if a little more rest in the weeks to come (even with an increasingly harder schedule in December) will do them some good.
Maybe against Utah (although I thought that is why they get payed multi millions each year), but waht about the griz. Blazers are at home with a days rest. Memphis on a road trip comes into the Rose Garden and plays with a lot more effort than the Blazers. Have a hard time chalking that one up to being tired.
Yes the Blazers have played 19 games, and nobody else has played more than 17. Could they be mentally fatigued? Sure, that's a lot of games. But physically fatigued? Who? Let's go through the staring five's minutes: Oden (24) Blake (29) Webster (22) Aldridge (32) Roy (36) Lamarcus and Oden have been in foul trouble half the time, Webster has been in/out of the starting line-up, and Blake is splitting minutes with Miller. Is Roy tired? You could make an argument either way. He's playing less and taking 2 shots fewer/game than last season & he's not going to the basket nearly as much. But he did spend a couple of weeks guarding "bigger" guys at SF - maybe he's still reeling from that - I doubt it. Also consider the style of play - slowest pace team in the league. If they played Phoenix Suns type basketball, I might buy the tired legs theory. One more thing - they haven't been involved in many close/down to the wire games. They have cruised to several blowout or at least comfortable wins. They don't look tired to me, they look frustrated and maybe a little bored. The schedule is about to get really tough. I have NO IDEA what to expect in December (that 4 game road trip could easily be 4 losses - Orlando, Miami, Dallas, & SA in 5 nights! - 2 back to backs) It could easily be a 4-11 month.
Sounds like a good theory ... except that we've looked like crap right from the start of the season, long before fatigue should have been an issue.
Lame excuse. This is the same team that's needs a consolidation trade because guys can't get enough minutes. Now they are too tired to keep from getting blown out of the gym at home against the Memphis Grizzlies. Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways. You can't bitch about not getting enough minutes and then complain about being too tired to win games you should be able to win in your sleep. Yeah, we've played more games than anyone else, but Brandon Roy is the only player on the team that could even hope to play the "fatigue card". He leads the league in minutes played, but is only 20th in MPG. Aldridge and Blake (ughh) are the only other players on the team that have played more than 500 minutes. This is supposedly a young, deep team. Roy and Aldridge are the only two players averaging more than 30 MPG - and both of them are playing fewer MPG this season than they have the last two. Blake is averaging 29.2 MPG (but I'm i favor of giving him more rest). Miller is averaging 26.3 MPG - 10 MPG less than last season and the lowest since his rookie year. Oden is averaging 24.6 MPG, Rudy 23.5 and Martell 22.1. Fatigue is just a convenient excuse for not getting the job done and putting in the effort needed to compete. BNM
I doubt that as well. I remember after the 3 guard lineup was first implemented, Rebecca Haarlow had a sideline report quoting Roy basically saying he wasn't concerned about guarding 3s. Mainly because last year Nic spent a fair amount of time guarding 1s and 2s so he was used to covering 3s.
