After clinching the playoffs, and then travelling to 5200' overnight, how can anyone be surprised about this loss? Christ, people are bitching and moaning like everything is falling apart. To me, it was just 1 game out of 82, Denver was rested, and we were ass tired and didn't play defense. Oh well...
Wow! Think if I payed ya 40k for one game on national TV and a better playoff spot you might want to show up? Tired? Roy, LA, Batum, Webster, Rudy, Bayless are all what sub 25? It's not like they were roofing all day in the hot sun and then asked to play the same night after a 10 hour shift! Geez!
Showing up is one thing. Being ass tired is another thing. A person can do a half-assed job roofing; hell, I've done it after a night on the town.
Solid half of basketball! Yea I didn't fully expect them to keep it up myself, but it was looking good there for a min One thing that really bugged me, these touch fouls are getting out of control, shit is fing anoying
Denver and Utah just beat us up! Till we get tougher and Roy plays like an allstar in these type of games, expect these same results! I'm not upset, the problem is obvious now in the offseason we must address it. Denver and Utah will look the same next year so we need to adjust.
Houston was much more physical last year than Denver or Utah are this year. Roy showed up for those "type of games" while being defended by Battier and Artest.
+1 Looking over the schedule over the entire year two months ago, I would've put last night's game as one of the 3 or 4 most likely losses for the season. Denver had time to prepare for Portland, but Portland didn't have time to prepare for Denver. Even still, if Roy puts up his normal numbers and Miller doesn't inexplicably miss four free throws, they might have won it. Even with the loss, Portland has only lost three games in over a month. Time to move on.
Roy is very good at hitting difficult shots so the team has a lot of success even when he is well guarded. But wouldn't it be nice if he didn't have to take as many difficult shots during a game. Like maybe the percentage goes down to 50% or so, with the other 50% being plays designed to free him up. And there are those plays. The team runs them from time to time. But their default is to iso Roy and hope he can pull off another miracle shot. They need a different go to play when they really need a bucket. Against a team with a good one-on-one defender (and Arron Aflalo is most certainly that) Portland is going to struggle more often then not.
The Nuggets are better, and have our number. Any first-round matchup looks pretty darn tough for us - Lakers, Nuggets, Mavs, Utah. All are better teams at this point. We have a chance against Utah, less so the Mavs. Denver and LA would send us packin.
Most teams, if they are in a situation where they "really need a bucket" will iso their best player. If Cleveland "really needs a bucket" Lebron is getting the ball to get that bucket. And it makes sense to do, IMO. And apparently, in the opinion of many coaches as well. If I need a basket bad, I want to limit the number of things that can go wrong, and simplify the situation. Diagraming up some random play generally will involve other moving parts, pieces, and others touching the ball. Opening up room for error. If the ball is in Roy's hands, or Kobe's, Lebron's, Carmello's, etc., the things that can go wrong are minimized. The different things to do to free up Roy, what if that doesn't work? What if that very good man defender denies him the ball? Then, when you really need a bucket, you're relying on someone other than your best player to get it for you.
Seriously stop making excuses...Denver is better than POR flat out...Better scorers in Billups\JR Smith...a better "star" player in Carmelo..... Nene has just to much beef for Camby....and I thought Afflalo played Roy to pretty much even, which should NEVER happen.... They doubled\tripled defenders on Roy when his iso play was called....Our bench, particularly Rudy & Bayless were grossly ineffectual....sloppy turnovers and piss poor defense...52 points in the paint... The sad part is, I felt this was a winnable game, DEN did not play very well and yet they still pulled away and won with ease in the 4th quarter...So some of you can make excuses all you want but this was important game that POR could have won....
It's pretty easy to see what happened. Expectations started to get pretty high with the great month of play (minus a couple of hiccups here and there) and when we go back to Denver where this team has almost never enjoyed success, they suffer a bad loss and all of sudden we're back to "this team is garbage", "they suck balls!" This team is what it is, a very good team, but probably still not quite elite, and they still struggle with teams that play a more physical style. Anyway, I'm just hopeful that there won't be much of a hangover in these last 6 games and that the team can finish out the year on a high note and take some of the momentum they've built up over the past month and carry that over.
The difference between Denver and Portland is still that Portland has no number 2 scorer. Good teams in the west at playoff time will take away your #1, and maybe even your #2 option. Right now Portland does not have a #2 option. They have Brandon Roy, a slightly above average power forward and a bunch of guys who are trying to find their way in this league. What happened last year in the playoffs? The Rockets made Roys life rough, and nobody else stepped up. Sound familiar?
No. Aldridge put up 19.5 per game in the playoffs. The issue was theplayers beyond Roy AND Aldridge. Not just beyond Roy.
so what has changed this year? nothing... = kpee has failed to improve us.... which means FIRE HIS ASS
Oden and Przybilla got hurt. If that hadn't happened, Portland wouldn't have lost any games this year.
19.5 points is 20% of Portland's offense. That's a lot. That's tier 2. Shut the fuck up about your book. Ain't nobody reading it but you.
Pau Gasol averaged 18.3 in the playoffs lsat season. That was good enough to win a championship. Rashard Lewis averaged 19. They were in the Finals. Mo Williams-16.3 Chauncey-20.6 Josh Smith-17.1(actually led the team) Ray Allen-18.3 Josh Howard-15.8 Aaron Brooks-16.8 Those are all the teams that won a playoff series last season. Or multiple series. Only 1 team had their second player average more points than Aldridge. So it looks like EVERYONE is getting by with just an above average role player as their #2. So we should be fine.
