Blazers/Nuggets April 1st Game Thread

I can promise you son that there is probably 26 or 27 teams in the NBA tht would love to have Brandon as there starting 2-guard!

 

True, but beside the point.

Roy is currently one of the top 3 or 4 Sgs in the league. Kobe and LeBron are in the conversation for top 10 players of all time. Roy is not anywhere close to that level. Worse, he has regressed since getting his nice, fat extension.

 

Just a quick blurb about tonights game:

The Blazers would have won this game had they just nutted up and just hit their shots. I thought the refs did a good job, I thought the Blazers tried pretty hard through 3 quarters. I just think it comes down to all those missed shots deflating the team. Nothing to freak out about. Sure some things could have gone better, our young players made a lot of mistakes. (All of them, Rudy, Batum, Bayless). They all made bad mistakes during the game. Those are the lumps I expected the team to take when we went with younger players in the 2nd unit. All I can ask is they learn, and move forward.

 

I think we are going to see this same kind of defense in the playoffs where Roy is being taken out of the flow and teams pack it in. If the shots aren't falling, Nate needs to install and practice a plan B which is flashing players to the middle to force some ball movement. We couldn't rebound the misses very well either (at least in the 2nd half which is all I watched).

 

When we watched the game last night, we got a taste of true playoff basketball. Let's look at what happened, and what happened in Houston last year, and notice some similarities:

1. Physical game. Lots of players hitting the floor, lots of hard fouls.

2. Game stops. A lot of game stops. It makes those running opportunities for easy buckets important, but more rare.

3. Primary scorer being locked down. For 3 quarters, Carmello Anthony was locked down. For the whole game, Roy was locked down. I have talked about this before. In the west in the playoffs, the best teams will take away your top 1 or 2 options in the offense, and force your other players to score. Look what happened last night. Look at which team had the most dependable scorers. Was it Carmello Anthony who beat us, or was it Billups and Smith?

4. Tense players. Lets face it. A lot of missed shots by Blazers who were tense because of the situation. About the only guy who played loose, was Webster, and that is because he is the goofball he is.