Forensic Fan Game Three. From the Top: Golden State 95, Portland 90. The Blazers, for the second night in a row, overcame a horrific offensive effort to salvage a tie going into the fourth quarter, when miscues and time/timeout management gave Golden State their third win in three games and left the Blazers reeling with another round of what-might-have-beens. Can’t even blame the D on this one…Portland played decent enough defense to be up one with the ball with 14 seconds left and the ability to run down the clock to 2.3 seconds. The D gave up 89 in the first 47:51 to a team that put up 127 last night. This one comes down to not scoring as efficiently as they’re supposed to and having a meltdown in the last 15 seconds. Players of the Game: For the first time this season, really, a Blazer was in the running. LaMarcus brought, if not his A-game, a solid B+ tonight, especially turning it on in the fourth quarter. His 26 points and 13 rebounds, including 5-for-6 from the field in the 4th, kept the Blazers afloat for 3 quarters and brought the Blazers to the cusp of victory in the 4th. But since the game is results-based, and the team with the most points at the buzzer wins, honors go to Klay Thompson. His 29 points (including the go-ahead floater with 9 seconds left) brought the W’s back from the brink. And, there was this little contribution to his personal highlight reel, at the expense of RoLo. Personally, I think Blake owes him a beer for that one. Other Monster Games (TM): Robin Lopez had his second double-double of the season (12 points on 6-13 shooting and 10 rebounds—including 6 offensive). Wes had 18, but on the whole this was not a game where you want to take a long look at numbers. Such, however, is my lot in life. Points per shot: LMA led the way with 26 points on 20 shots, for a solid 1.30. Wes’s 3 made 3’s pumped him up to a respectable 1.20 (18 points on 15 shots). But Nic (5pts on 7 shots), Lopez (12pts on 13), Lillard (I don’t even wanna say it—11 on 18) all fell apart. In fact, there have been more no-hitters in MLB history (255) than NBA games when a player has shot more than 18 shots and earned 11 points or less (251). By the way, Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson, Mookie Blaylock (?!?) and Antoine Walker own this category. Blake off the bench had 10 on 5 shots (2.0), but I’m going to arbitrarily set up a limit of 8 shots before you get the medal, or Allen Crabbe’s 1-for-1-with-a-garbage-time-3 will make him look like Chesty Puller this year. (Note: it’s worth a google if you don’t know this guy. Seriously) Anyway, enough about that… Coin Ratio: Um, about that. Blake’s 5 assists over 5 shots gives him the first Bust-a-Buck Coin Ratio of the Year (min: 5 attempts). Other than that, though… Dame’s 5 assists on 18 shots (to be fair, he should’ve had about 3 more) gives him 28 cents for tonight…not good. It also dropped his Coin Ratio for the year below 30 cents, while being the primary ballhandler. To put that into perspective, that’s a similar ratio to luminaries such as Vinnie Johnson, Jamal Crawford, Ricky Davis, OJ Mayo, Evan Turner, Larry Hughes, old Mitch Richmond, Joe Johnson, etc. In a related note, all of those guys were abject failures as starting PGs. So, in effect, Dame’s performance through three games has been a combination of the ball-hogginess of Jamal Crawford, Ricky Davis and Joe Johnson while shooting as much as Allen Iverson and Antoine Walker and as poorly as young Jason Kidd or Mookie Blaylock on a bad day. And on that note: Rebounding: The Blazers’ domination of the boards was the one thing that was keeping them in the game through three quarters, until LaMarcus caught on fire. For the first time this season the Blazers bigs were able to impose their will to the tune of 17 offensive rebounds (versus 7 for the W’s). Turnovers: With an uptempo game like projected, turnovers were going to be a part of the game. Unfortunately, our D is not equipped to gamble and collect steals and blocks, so a little sloppiness on our part resulted in losing the turnover battle 19-17. Normally a 2-TO deficit is not the prime cause for the loss, though not a help. In this case, 3 in the last 14 seconds (including the first one, which never should have happened) cost the Blazers the game. Bench: Even in a (relatively speaking) bad game (1-5, 2pts, 7reb) Kaman once again had the highest +/- on the team. While I abhor single-game +/-‘s (or even 3 in a row, for that matter), the trend that the team does better when he’s in the game is worth keeping an eye on. Blake, aside from getting torched on his first defensive possession, played a solid game on D and was very efficient and distributive on offense. We saw our first “Danger” lineup of the year: a combination of Wild Will and Truck Robinson on the floor at the same time. You know, like… Whatever. They both played well, with energy, (mostly) within the flow of the offense and defense. 4-8, 8pts, 8 rebounds in 30 combined minutes. The Trail Blazers are still playing their bench only 14.5 mpg (27th in the league), and they’ve been overall a net zero in efficiency deltas (-0.2). Still, 18 points on 19 shots in 77 minutes…we need a little more than that. Final Thoughts: Well, in the Small Sample Size, those who are clamoring for a Top 10 defense should be happy. Our DRtg of 103.5 is 10th in the league. 7th in points allowed (95.7). 7% better overall. Holding offenses to fewer 3s made (6th in the league), fewer 2s made (12th), lower percentage shooting on both (8th and 7th, respectively). I mean, you could ask Tom Thibodeaux to come coach and add a mid-90’s Mutombo and Payton to this team, but in reality the defense has improved (especially the bench D) to a Top 10-level and the Blazers have collectively and simultaneously started shooting like villians in an A-Team episode: That said, this team (and these specific guys) have a track record of not being horrible shooters and are just starting to enter their prime. I don’t expect that Nic, Dame, Wes and Blake will continue shooting horribly from outside. Having the defensive chops, though, certainly helps. All in all, I feel like the Black Knight a bit on this one. Sure, it sucked, but in reality… I think the team’s deluding themselves a bit, though, if they think that they can keep taking hits like the last two nights without the natives getting restless. Today’s flesh wound is tomorrow’s (or April’s) exsanguination. See you Tuesday Night for LeBron and the King’s Court. Not that one. Guh. Go Blazers.
Good job again. The good thing about the numbers here is that I take some comfort that it isnt the reverse. Meaning if we were scoring in bunches and the defense sucked again I wouldnt be happy about the long term outlook for the season. But instead we are defending well and as BFW said there is reason to believe the shooting will correct itself. And as bad as the shooting has been we have still been in the games we lost so hopefully when it works itself out we should be pretty hard to stop.
