Segio's improvement has been tremendous. During time outs I switched channels to watch the Kings - a crappy team - clobber the Lakers. No lucky shot, no disastrous turnover, the Lakers were owned. But I am still not happy and haven't slept. Sorry. Win at Utah. That's the only thing to make me feel better. go Blazers
Orlando shoots the 3 at a 35% clip during the season, this game Orlando shot the 3 at a 52% clip. Really, an aberration. We played well enough to beat Orlando handily in most games they play.
Better coached? Bah. We held their superstar who usually goes for 22/14 to 14/5. Our all-star was killing them all night long. They just shot the lights out and it happens. If they were a little closer to their normal 3P percentage - this would have been a double-digit win.
I don't see Mediocre Man too much around here. But you can always count that he will be here after a loss blaming Nate (had at least 4 posts about Nate so far since the game). Nate is regarded as one of, if not THE best young coach in the game. He was an assistant coach on the USA team and the players loved him and loved his defense (the defense is why we won that gold). We had the best % of scoring out of time outs, and our players really like him. Around the league, and on other teams game forum, you see a lot of things about Nate like "at least they have a competent coach who... blah blah". No coach is perfect. I've seen Laker fans bash Phil Jackson all the time also. You don't know what you have until you lose it.
Like I said, this was a fluke ass loss. We take Orlando in 5-6 in a 7 game series. Honestly, I thought we played a TERRIBLE 2 and a half quarters, and we were still close going into the 4th, amazing. We went 1 on 1 wayyyyyyyy too much, poor ball movement. It is nice to know that it took the refs questionable judgement, them shooting lights out, and us to play a horrible half, to beat us by 1 on a lucky ass bank shot. Call it sour gapes, whatever, whatever, but its truly how I feel.
One eye-opener to me was how effective we could be if we ran the offense through Rudy more. Particularly have him orchestrate the pick-and-roll more with Aldridge, Przybilla and Oden. He's mostly used as a secondary attacker/spotup shooter/shooter coming off screens, which is a waste of his passing ability and floor vision. The plan at the end of close games should be to mix Roy isolation plays with Rudy/Aldridge pick-and-rolls.
Yup, and that's why I would not be worried if we lost some of Sergio's over-dribbling to Rudy's play-making abilities.
Rudy's bounce pass between Dwight's legs was one of the coolest things I have ever seen done in a game. That was absolutely awesome. Roy has gotten to the Have to Double Him point. If you don't, he is going to embarass whoever is guarding him. Outside of last nights game, I would say Blake has played many times better then last year. Sergio was damn good last night. Maybe his best game as a Blazer. Joel is really, really playing well. Helping keep Howard under 20 points and 10 rebounds is absurd. I can safely say that Orlando is not going to win many games when Howard is that ineffective. I am thinking the team will play better with Oden once they get more then one day off in a row. That hasn't really happened since he came back. They get 3 full days off between games next week. Hopefully that time will be spent working on passing into the post. Overall this year has been better then the last 5. I expect Portland to win. I couldn't really say that in the past 5 years or so.
More practice time and Mo Lucas coming back will GREATLY improve Oden and the team's ability to play w/ him.
