That's all we got tonight. Hey Nate, you might want to run some more, and get easier baskets. ugh, I've seen a team so inept offensively with so many versatile individual talents on the roster. Partial credit has to go to Boston for their excellent defense, but we simply aided their efforts even more by forcing ourselves to play such a slow pace in the halfcourt, instead of leaking out after rebounds, turnovers , or even made shots. I just don't get it. Nate says we want to run. Miller is one of the best fast breaking point guards, and we still fail so hard.
I've said it before, this team cannot run as long as Roy is on the floor. He controls the pace too much and it isn't in his nature to run.
Tonight was a failure top to bottom. Coaches and players alike. If I had to take a guess, I would have to say the Blazers have been doing nothing but shoot arounds in their practices for the last few days. Nobody was moving. Passes were lazy. Nobody was coming to help when a player picked up their dribble. They might try actually practicing sometime, and maybe even watching some film and paying attention to it. They were making the same mistakes LA did the night before, but obviously didn't learn. The best way to learn from mistakes is when somebody else makes them. The worst situation is when somebody makes them, and you learn nothing from them.
Sometimes you have to give credit to the other team. Boston just flat out kicked their asses because their defense is superb, and they are a veteran tough minded team that knows how to pick apart a mediocre to somewhat good jump shooting team with suspect interior defense.
The next coach for people to blame when they can't figure out the real reason things are going wrong...
Maybe put a Guard in that doesn't have a bad hamstring. That Camby pass to halfcourt where no one was breaking on his rebound was because Nate has ingrained it into the heads of everyone on the Blazers to never run with the ball and to always slow things down. Nate's anal-retentiveness does more harm than good. You could give Nate 5 Clyde Drexlers and he'd still be pulling in the reins trying to run a 1-on-5 style of basketball. That's why we whooped the Sonics asses when Nate was a Sonic.
I am one who does put the onus, to a significant degree, on Nate. Don't get me wrong, he is not at fault on his own, but it is his ship if you will. Would you care to extrapolate on what the "real reason things are going wrong" might be, as it would give many of us on the forum enlightenment.
We need a fucking point guard. Oh wait. We spent 21 million on one and WE STILL ONLY GOT SEVEN ASSISTS TONIGHT!!
It's true. We ran into a team that is putting it together for a championship run. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a long win streak for them.
Steve Blake (with no practice on a new team) vs Playoff bound Atlanta: 9 assists The entire Portland team vs Playoff bound Boston: 7 Assists
I finally got to see the game - my opinion is that it was: 1. Boston playing fantastic defense 2. Portland expecting things to be easy because Boston played the night before - and not coming out hungry and quick. They looked like they were playing in slo-mo. Individually - Roy looked 50% to me. Miller was trying - but when he is thrust into the primary scorer role it fails more often than it succeeds, JB is just not ready to run a team as a primary point-guard. We missed Blake a little tonight - both from ball-handling and 3P shooting aspects - but I doubt he was the real "difference" maker. Would have lost without him anyway. Again - we see that Travis's ability to make shots even when plays break very badly is something that was underestimated - we have been missing it all year long - and especially against a team with good defense like Boston.
I hate to admit it, but we really missed his 3 point shooting. We needed something to stop the bleeding at a few points, and nobody on this team could manage the big shot.
