Is anyone else a little pissed at the local media's apologetic attitude about the Blazers losing to the Lakers Wednesday? All I've heard is "They Gave the Lakers all they could handle!" and "They took the world champs to overtime!"... nothing about the Blazers completely choking and not scoring in the final 4 minutes of the game. I'm sorry, I'm not usually a MIXUM type debbie downer, but let's call that game what it was: a giveaway by the Blazers to the Lakers. A flat-out gag job. LaMarcus went cold, Matthews went cold, Batum had what, three chances to ice it with open jumpers and MISSED them? Shades of 2000 WCF Game 7. Yeah, I know it wasn't that bad, but dammit, that's a game the Blazers should have won going away... and it's a troubling sign that they didn't.
I guess I don't really get worked up either way by what the local media write about a Blazers win or loss. That being said, what did you want them to say? It was pretty obvious that the team went ice cold at the wrong time. It's not the first time we've seen it this season. Hopefully, the addition of Wallace and the return of Roy and Camby will help to avoid such let-downs in the future.
I took it as a troubling sign the Flakers are too big for the team we had on the floor, LaMarcus had to play about 50 minutes against a revolving door of 7-footers, and the team got worn out against the champs because we need a bench. I know the missed jumpers are glaring, but a better bench with a couple more big bodies and LaMarcus gets to sit for a couple of minutes and we win that game. Oops, I hope it doesn't look like I'm apologizing.
I get so ANGRY at the local media being Blazers apologists! They should go back to criticizing the team, like in the good old days!!
I felt much the same. I think after the loss, I felt more along the lines of, well, hey, tomorrow is the trade deadline, if we can land Wallace, and once Camby is back.....and felt not too bad about an OT loss to the Lakers. Camby around to get some rebounds, Wallace in as small ball 4 instead of Nic, and we likely win.
Yup. My overall impression was that if these are the big, bad Lakers and they're the team to beat in the West...heh, let's go beat 'em.
It depresses me to say, but I have radically lowered my expectations for this team. Last year, it would have KILLED me to lose that game like that. This year, I'm just numb. Bottom line, if the game were 47 minutes, we would have beat MIA and LAL at home this year.
To me it was piss poor coaching. If you can't design a play to score in the last 4:30 of a basketball game you aren't doing a good job. Then again, we had some easy looks that went awry (Batum) and shot way too many 3's.
