For everyone here, in the media, and any other Blazer apologists..... If chemistry is a problem, "fitting new guys in" then why is Denver winning with 5 new players? Why are the Knicks winning? The fact of the matter is, if not for a miracle 3 vs the Nuggets, the blazers would have lost 4 straight. Thanks to the hideous lost last night.... the rockets are avery much alive with perhaps the easiest schedule left in the league. Just add another team we will have to fight off for playoffs. So disgusted after the last 2 games you may get your wish about me not posting. This is just plain embarrassing. Andre Miller suddenly is a jump shooter while turning the ball over 50 times. Batum watches guys get rebounds and cant make a three to save his life unless we are down 15. Matthews looks like someone cut his balls off and roys wearing them for earrings. LA looks like he has called it a season and Camby looks like a guy who has a fishing trip planned for April 17th. Holy shit this team is tanking. our best players right now are Mills and Wallace. So sick of excuses at this point. After all the shit people talked quoting me saying "season over" looks like you guys were right. Except this time theres no mocking. Now we can all watch the ship go down. With our schedule remaining ..... better say some prayers.
This I would imagine has some to do with bad chemistry to begin with, with the Melo saga. I personally dont know why the Blazers are playing so bad lately, so you cant throw me in the excuses category... but with Denver I am imagining it being kind of like when a coach is fired and the team rallies and gets hot for a couple weeks, then flame out. I think a weight was lifted off Denver's shoulders after the trade finally went down IMO
WE JUST GOT ROLLED by a rockets team with lowry, martin and scola as their best players. We are so much more talented then the suns,rockets, etc, Yet we are fighting for our playoff lives.
Mixum, what you fail to understand is that there is difference between excuses and reasons. There are reasons why we're playing poorly and those can be remedied. This is still a team with talent. Changes can, and will be made. You constantly seek to find the negative in nearly every aspect of your being. Perhaps consider thinking a bit more pragmatically or even positively for a while.
If you keep saying 'season over' long enough, you will eventually be right. Until then, you'll just keep looking the fool. Go Blazers
least dwight isnt making excuses Let's talk about that 103-87 embarrassment at the hands of the Houston Rockets, for the second game in a row a home defeat even worse than the score indicated. -- You can talk all you want about trying to integrate three "new" players into the lineup, but the fact is, Brandon Roy is a fixture around here. The coaching staff and the players know what he can do. Marcus Camby is a pro who has been around forever and he's played with this group long enough that his skillset is no surprise to anyone. Getting those guys back in the lineup should be no major problem. That leaves one new player. -- Gerald Wallace, after nine seasons in the NBA, is no mystery, either. He's not a post-up player and he's not a shooter from distance (and please, don't confuse those three three-pointers Tuesday night with a consistency from that distance. He's never shown that.) He's a slasher and a finisher on the fast break. But so far, the Blazers have done nothing special to accommodate him in their offense. Running the same plays for him that they run for LaMarcus Aldridge will not get it done. By the way, I'm not sure he's any sort of long-term answer as a power forward, either. -- I'm positive there must be some old game tape from the early 1990s around the Rose Garden archives. Pull out some of those games and take a look at the way the Blazers used Jerome Kersey and do that for Gerald Wallace. Pretty much the same kind of players. In fact, you don't have to run plays for Wallace anymore than you did for Kersey -- just tell him to collect garbage at the basket, keep moving and then get out on the break and finish. -- Two fast break points is ridiculous. Get out and run. No, not all the time. But you have to pick up the odd 10-15 points off the break that are there for every team every night. Allowing 52 points in the paint to one of the smallest front lines in basketball is also pretty ridiculous. The Rockets always do the same thing to the Trail Blazers -- spread them out and then move the ball. They get Portland going side to side and it always ends up with a wide-open lane to the basket and/or wide-open three-point field goals. -- Why is a team with Wesley Matthews, Nic Batum, Marcus Camby and Gerald Wallace suddenly getting scorched at the defensive end? That's a formidable pack of defensive demons. Can we get that organized a little better? -- I know, I've been inundated with messages from people pointing out that Portland is 20-10 without Brandon Roy and 13-17 with him. Ignoring that statistic does this team no good. I do believe there are lessons there. No, not necessarily that Portland is better without Roy -- but that this team isn't doing a very good job of making best use of Roy. Man, he's a different player now than he was during those three all-star seasons. Use him differently, then. Find him a new role. Instead of using him on top in the pick-and-roll, throw him into that corner where Nic Batum usually lurks. Roy will nail that jumper better than anyone else on the team. -- Aldridge is going to continue to see double-teams and even triple-teams because Portland does not shoot the ball well from long range. For some reason, the Blazers just refuse to go out and find shooters. For years they have! But when you start the game off with Wesley Matthews (38.9 percent from three), Nic Batum (.341), Marcus Camby (.000) and Andre Miller (.103) on the floor, you're going to struggle from three-point range. Rudy Fernandez (.343) and Roy (.341) aren't all that good, either. And Wallace is at .351. Ugh. -- All in all, the team finds itself in the same roster-imbalance situation as early last season. And as we've seen, that's a difficult spot for any coach -- particularly McMillan, who thrives when the injuries mount up because it creates a rotation for him. I've said it before, but ultimately what's going to have to happen here -- in the midst of what is suddenly looking like a fight to the finish just to make the playoffs -- is someone is going to have to be left out of the rotation. There is too much of a logjam at the 3-4 spots. Rather than try to play everyone, it might be better just to make a choice to sit someone. -- Right now, Gerald Wallace is the second-best player on the Blazer roster, after Aldridge. Somebody better figure out how to best use this guy or that trade is going to make the front office look very dumb. So, I'd say if I'm on the coaching staff, I'd make that a pretty high priority. -- There are some hard decisions ahead for this team's coaching staff. And I mean dead ahead -- like in the next game or two.
Dwight may be a grade A ass, but he brings up some obvious thoughts. It's a matter of making changes- and we will.
I think that these are 2 games. Just like the New Jersey and Philadelphia losses earlier this season, were two games. But the thing I look at is, the team better wake up fast, because a couple of losses in the pacific conference will knock you out of the playoffs. The first thing the team can do is start making an effort. That would be a good first step. If you don't get that first step, the rest is a waste of time.
There IS no excuse for this situation. Other teams are dealing with bigger changes than the Blazers, and doing so far more professionally. I'd bet good money that this starts in the locker-room. If that's true, it's on 2 people: Nate and Roy. The coach and the "team leader."
