Game Thread PRESEASON GAME# 1: JAZZ @ BLAZERS - OCTOBER 3, 2016 - MONDAY, 7:00 PM (PST), NBATV & CSNNW

It always amazes me that people look down on getting it right. When there is a bad call, it should be highlighted and it should be used as an excuse. It's inherently unfair and against the spirit of sport. Bad calls are BAD for the game. The Oregon-Nebraska game SHOULD have an asterisk after it. If that game was called evenly, Oregon wins by 10. Go back to the Lakers-Blazers game 7. Portland most likely has another championship if not for absolutely being jobbed by the referees. This practice of ignoring blatant incompetence or favoritism plays against the very essence of competition.

 

Didn't watch neither game but I would like us to keep Montero. I agree with waiving the other two players, though. Not sure who should be the 3rd

 

Maybe it was just preseason but I can't remember a game where I thought less about the officiating than last night. Helps that the broadcasting team doesn't highlight it every time haha

 

Two things Calabro said last night that made me feel all mushy inside.

Leapin lean
Red Hot and Rollin

 

Turner's shot from midrange looks solid. On balance, nice rotation, and decent form.

Step back about 10 feet, and his shot is so broken. I thought Rouq had bad form, but man. His release is just awful and completely flat. I'm glad Terry is letting him experiment with that in preseason, but he shouldn't be shooting that shot unless it's at the end of the clock.

Think I read somewhere that his back injury in college led to his 3pt failures-- holds true it seems.

 

Also, that lineup we started with in the second half was a revelation.

Dame-CJ-Crabbe-Mo-Ed

Holy spacing. That is a deadly potent combo. Ed was holding his own, but replace him with Ezeli, and you've got LEGIT rim protection to go with all that versatility and spacing.

Offense looked to be in midseason form. Night and day compared to the clunky mess that Utah has.

 

Some quick hits from the game:

Crabbe showed awesome step-back 3s which he was confident in - maybe the Nets knew something!

I expect a lot of success in the preseason - we're deep, and in a format where your starters only play 20 minutes, depth wins out.

Davis was a beast - his +/- was +20 in 17 minutes, wow!

With Turner, Crabbe, and Davis coming off the bench, it should be a fantastic year.

I'm on the Jerrett bandwagon, and this game certainly didn't change that. The others seemed OK, but none of the bubblers seemed to break out.

Annoyed that we went down 13-2, but thrilled that we finished the game 97-76, and that's with our DLeague team in at the end.

We played harder than they did, we wanted it more. Hopefully we can sustain that type of effort.

New broadcast crew are fine, but not nearly as good as Mike and Mike.

Surprised at how good Napier played.

Utah is very good, but....... they're not the Blazers. Sorry national preseason prognosticators!

 

Calabro was awesome as expected. I love how he didn't have that lull and panic that MB used to have whenever the other team went on a run.

But Hurd lacks the charm that Rice used to provide. And his analysis was weak.

1 game, but these guys have 0 chemistry. Any conversation between the two seemed contrived. Gotta give em 20 games to figure it out.

 

You referred me back to the post I replied to. I still don't know who. Not worth pursuing.

Good to see the Blazers in action. The 13-0 Utah run was concerning but it was with mostly scrubs. Napier impressive. Dame was Dame.

The new announcers were competent but dull. I'd like an NBA game broadcast to have a big more excitement than a class on gas chromatography.

 

Wheels seems calmer too.

 

Holy shit, that lighting looks awesome with our color scheme.

 

Played well last night too.

 

More thoughts on the games......

Napier reminds me a lot of Patty Mills (The slimmer SA version) Very excited by his game. Not expecting him to shoot 100% every time, but his shot was effortless. Great addition to the bench as we needed a super quick PG.

Loved Ed Davis physical defensive presence.

Crabbe's floater that I mentioned over the summer when posters were saying he was one dimensional on offense.......is going to be a huge weapon for him. That, and his pull up mid range jumper gives him three diverse options.

Love the quickness from our front line to the ball. (Aminu, Harkless, and Plums) One of my biggest pet peeves has been the lack of getting the 50/50 balls. Now when the loose balls / long rebounds hit the floor, I am much more confident that we have a chance to get them. And the quick hands in there are great too see as well.

 

UTA == OVERRATED

I get that it's just one game, and the starters for both teams only played about 20 minutes, but the Jazz looked EXACTLY like I thought they would. That offense is just plain ugly. How they can play at such a godawful slow pace and still turn the ball over so much defies logic. That was a big problem for them last year (tied for 3rd worst in TOV% despite of playing at the slowest pace, by far), and doesn't look like it's changed.

They still don't have a go to scorer. And, like I mentioned in one of the preseason threads, their best scorers are also their worst defenders.

Best bench in the NBA???? LMAO at that one. Those key off season acquisitions look like the shit I predicted they would. It cracks me up that the national media thinks 100 year old Iso Joe Johnson, Fat, lazy Boris Diaw and George Hill are going to take this team from lottery to HCA in the West.

As I've mentioned several times, the only player on that roster that's ever averaged more than 20 ppg is 35-year old Joe Johnson, but what I haven't mentioned is the last time Joe Jonhson averaged 20 ppg so did Brandon Roy. And, Johnson's defense is even worse than bone-on-bone era Roy. He was -22 in 16 minutes. Expect more of the same Jazz fans. They signed Jonson to a two year $22 million deal. It doesn't sound that bad, in total dollars, considering some of the other contracts handed out this summer, but $11 million a year tied up in a guy who is 35 years old, primarily known as a scorer, who hasn't outscored the guy he's guarding in 4 years, doesn't sound like bargain to me. This article, by Ben Golliver, about the Johnson signing cracks me up. An A-???? Really? $11 million a year for a 35-year old has been? OK Ben if you say so. This is typical Golliver. Ever since he went national, he deliberately slights the Blazers and piles ridiculous, undeserved praise on their division rivals. He's so desperate to shake the Portland guy image, he completely overcompensates to the point of being ridiculous. Eventually, bullshit like rating the Johnson signing an A- will destroy any shred of credibility he may have left. Note to Ben: old guys get worse, young guys get better. You may want to remember that in the future.

Then there's that lack of ball movement in Nate McSnyder's "offense". Only 17 assists to 19 turnovers while scoring less than 90 points. How is that even possible? We keep hearing about how they have shored up the PG position by trading for Hill and getting Exum back. The two combined for 4 assists last night. In fact, the only player on their roster that had more than 2 assists was Shelvin Mack, whose play at PG last year was considered the main thing holding them back. Guess what, even though Mack is a shoot first (and second and third PG) that is incredibly turnover prone, he's still the best passer they have on their roster. I'd love to see him starting by the end of the year, which would mean they gave up a lottery pick to get George Hill and he's not any better than the D-League guy they pulled off the scrap heap last year.

We had 4 guys with more than 2 assists to their 1. That, my friends, is the difference between a Terry Stotts offense and a Quin Snyder offense.

And is ANYONE surprised that without the threat of Pop looming, Boris Diaw gained 3o pounds this summer? Gee, no one saw that one coming...

The one guy who looked better than I expected is Exum. Well, at least he shot the ball better than he has in the past, but it's only one game. He's still very young and coming back off a major knee injury.

Note: Rodney Hood is NOT a star. We have (at least) three guards on our team better than their best guard. With his length, you think Hood would be a good defender, but Crabbe totally abused him (and Hayward) last night.

Speaking of Crabbe, I LOVED what I saw last night - actually scoring off the dribble and not just a $75 million stand still shooter. That step back, off the dribble, 3-pointer when he torched Rodney Hood was a thing of beauty. If we see more of that from Crabbe (and he did it more than once last night), he'll be worth the money and we may just have the best 3 guard rotation in the league.

Yep, just one preseason game, but it totally reinforces everything I believe to be true about both of these teams.

BNM

P.S. Fuck you national media. As Dame would say, "thanks for the motivation".

 

Calabro was as smooth and professional as expected.

Hurd seemed like he was trying too hard, but it's just one game. We'll see how he sounds once he has a few games under his belt. As the players say, he just needs to slow down and let the game come to him and not try to force things when there is nothing there. It seemed like he had a script last night of things he wanted to saying and was determined to say them even if they didn't match what was going on on the court. That's both good and bad. Good that he did his prep work, but bad that he tried to force things. Hopefully, he'll improve once he slows down and gets comfortable with the team and his role.

BNM