caught up at halftime, and I'm going to go back really quickly and look at the last half of the 2nd quarter. The starters (with Rudy instead of Batum) came back in at 5:29 in the quarter with a 36-27 lead. First play: Long Rudy 3 attempt, no Blazer inside the foul line for the rebound (where we had 10 OReb's already) Other end: Matthews a bit late closing out on Ronnie Price's 3. 36-30. 2nd: Miller post pass to LMA tipped out of bounds. Batum back in b/c they had Kilirenko on him. Then post iso of Matthews on Deron and gets the and-one. 39-30. (Side note: this is where Rice tells us they're missing their "post presence" Okur). On D: Ronnie Price misses a 3. third play: Trying to get to Matthews on the block against Price. Tipped out of bounds. Andre coming off a pick for a FT jumper. 41-30. On D: Price blocked by Nic, who didn't even jump. Raja Bell comes in for Price with 2 left on the shot clock. Matthews loses Bell and gets a chippie. 41-32 w/ 3:50 left. 4th play. Andre long jumper out of everyone standing around outside the 3pt line. Misses, and Camby tried to tip it but 1-on-4 means UTH gets it. Then kirilenko buries a 3. 5th play: Post iso to LMA, no movement, he gets stripped by Millsap, and Jefferson hits a jumper over Miller. 41-37. 2:36 to go. 6th play: Miller on the left angle, misses a cutting Nic, passes to Matthews who takes a top-of-key jumper that's off. no Blazer even moving toward the hoop, UTH rebound. Good foul to stop the ensuing fast break, 41-37 w/2:19 to go. Coming out of timeout (Rudy in for Wes) LMA loses MIllsap down low, and Paul gets the chippie and-one. 41-40, 2:07 left. 7th play: Iso to LMA against Elson (still lots of standing around). He powers to the hoop and gets it. 43-40. On D Raja Bell playind dirty and getting FTs for it. 43-42. 1:27 left. 8th play: Post-up to LMA with movement and cutters this time, but instead of going to the hoop against Elson LMA goes for the fadeaway. Short. Batum with the steal on D, good break for the and-one. 46-42, 49 seconds left. On D: Miller dares Bell to make a 3 and he does. 46-45. 9th play: Nic two-man game with LMA and gets fouled rubbing Hayward off of the pick. FTs. 48-45, 31 seconds left. On D: Miller steal leads to Batum fastbreak 3 that just missed. To recap, we're 2-10 from 3. They're 5-9. When there's movement, we do well. When there isn't, but LMA goes to the hoop, we do well. When we run, we do well. When we crash the boards, we do well. When we stand around and shoot long contested shots and fadeaway jumpers and don't crash the boards we take (and miss) bad shots, don't rebound, get crushed in transition D and give up leads. Credit to Camby for being very active on the boards, even though sometimes in the 2nd he looked like the only one
The insistance of this team to go 1 on 1 boggles my mind. How in the world does our coach let them continually do this? The insistance of our coach to leave players in the game when they are bringing nothing to the game boggles my mind. Rudy is a lot better than Babbitt, but last night it would not have been a bad idea to play Babbitt a few minutes. Just too stubborn and refuses to adjust unless he has to.
really bad loss considering hornets and celtics are coming up.... no roy anytime soon.... beginning of the end.
I was at the game - and I actually enjoyed it. Of course, my expectations were for a blow-out, the Jazz are a good team with a proper superstar in Deron. I think this game showed you how important B-Roy is for this team (or any team, honestly). The Blazers did have nice movement in the 4th - it is just that the Jazz tightened their defense and kept going with the cutters - leaving it to Andre/LMA to try and manufacture things one-on-one when they could not get the cutters to be free and the 3s were not falling. It sucks, but it is what it is. There is a reason teams without true super-stars, even if they are good deep teams, are just good but not fantastic. This is exactly where this team is without Roy. What you saw in the 4th was Deron being really aggressive - and the Blazers paying so much attention to him that CJ Miles was left open again and again - and he capitalized on it.
You guys ever notice how Deron does a little donkey kick to the shins of other players when he's running around?
Our boys lost a game where UTAH's Miles could be blind and deaf and still have found the the hoop from three.... I don't look at this as much of a loss as a guy that couldn't freakin miss! My only concern was where the hell was Nate after 3 of those went in to have someone on that kids hip so he couldn't shoot the damn ball? We really need a coach that has a clue!
It's called making a defensive adjustment and that's a coaches freakin job! Nate has been outcoached on every loss to say different now is laughable! He doesn't sub well, call timeouts to break mometum until we are to far behind to come back, and he pulls hot players so his scripted rotations don't lag. Further he has not set offense and we all know it! This guy is paid a bunch of money to look lost more often than not. Sorry no way around it.
