Amare - "We Might Not Have Taken Them as Seriously...

as we should have."


Just heard him on NBATV.

 

Yo, Amare, you might want to start that now.

Go Blazers

 

haha ooops

 

Standard loser comment No. 1.

What he meant to say was, "We just got embarassed on national TV by a team that totally outplayed us."

 

Isn't this the playoffs where you face a team that you've seen four times already this year? There are no excuses at this point.

 

he looked pretty serious when nic was getting in his head

 

And, Rich Kamla followed with, "Shame on you Steve Nash for not respecting the TrailBlazers."

 

I loved that elbow by Jerryd right into Amar'e's side, and the play after, when Bayless drove right at him and scored.

 

An interesting comment. Usually, when a team beats you 2-1--including one game without Brandon on your home court--you usually have some respect for them. Oh well, lesson learned.

 

I feel kinda sorry for whatever cap space team gets saddled with Amare' this offseason ... nah, just kidding.

 

.....again.

 

Keep that overconfidence Amare!

 

A similar one is, "That was a good wakeup call for us."
That's to act like they're still better than the team which just beat them.
(They didn't say that, but I get tired of hearing it.)

 

Honestly, we controlled the tempo for the majority of the game.

The Suns were playing at their best. We weren't. Now, if we were to play at our best, we'd easily rout the Suns.

 

I thought the same thing. The Suns brought their A game. We were without Roy & Oden (leaving us with only 1 center), LA had a so-so game, Rudy was flat and we still beat them. That's not to say we're going to sweep ther series, but it does tell me that when a team isn't playing their best and even being on the road, and STILL beats the home team who's playing well, it does mean something.

 

This incarnation of the Suns has been around for a few years, and they still haven't learned to play playoff basketball. When is that team going to learn you're not going to put up 120 points in the post season with regularity? Give some credit to Nate; he had this team ready.

 

Having Lopez out hurts them as he's their one true 5 with size. With things as they are injury wise, Portland is the bigger more physical team which generally wins in the playoffs. Of course if everyone from both squads is healthy this is even more true.

STOMP

 

You got it. I have been harping on this for years. You can't win in the playoffs with a team geared towards getting their scoring out of a running offense. A good team that control the pace will take them out of their game every time. In the playoffs, there are too many game stoppages for a running game to be effective more than a series or so before you run into a team which can handle it. The game is more physical, there are more fouls, TV timeouts, and in general, coaches are tighter on how long they let a run go on before they call a time out.

Portland is one of the best teams in the league at controlling pace of the game. We may not get many running points, but we are going to make you out execute the Blazers in the half court, which is the Blazers strong suit.

I think a lot of people are in denial. Portland team identity, is to make the game ugly (Like Early 90's NY Knick Ugly.)