Let me start by saying that I still fully support the Blazers and the sky is not falling. I still strongly expect the Blazers to make the playoffs and the rest of the season is going to be fun to watch. With that said somewhere along the way last night or this morning I came to some realizations: I have no one to blame but myself in a lot of ways. I got caught up in the hype of this fun season and placed unrealistic expectations on this team. I think its completely unrealistic to expect this team (this very young team) to make 2 steps forward instead of 1 at a time. That huge leap forward although possible, is probably not realistic. We are still going to lose some games to good teams on the road (although these last 2 games were very winnable games for sure). I went from very happy at the start of the season thinking about making the playoffs to being greedy and expecting to fight for HCA (though still possible). As fast as this team has come together it is so easy for me to forget that this is still a learning process for this team. Its not all going to happen this season. So, Im going to chalk this mistake on my part up to my blind love for the Blazers and the fact that many of us have suffered through some tough seasons and now we are so desperate to be sucessful. All we can really do at this point is cheer our team on and enjoy the ride.
Yeah, so... not sure if you saw the game last night. We lost, so that obviously means we'll never win again, Oden is a bust, Nate must be fired, Roy will never be a superstar, LMA won't be good enough for a second option, Sergio is getting too much/too little time, Outlaw has a low BB IQ and can't cut it, KP should have traded RLEC for puppy chow and we should have drafted Chris Paul, the end is nigh. Out with your reason and patience, bring on the pitchforks and torches.
I'm very happy with where the team is in the standings at this point. I'm just frustrated as hell at the way they played last night. Last night showed a lack of preparation, a lack of an intelligent plan, and extremely poor execution of whatever plan they had. Just a disgusting performance.
+1 I'm in that exact same camp. Baby steps, with a few hops along the way, would be just fine with me.
I agree, the way they played last night was inexcusable to be honest and did have very little to do with taking steps forward and learning. For the life of me I dont know why Nate give Bayless at least a chance at slowing down Parker?!?!?! It is beginning to boarder on stubborness at this point. And we have to get out of the trend of getting down by so much and fighting back. When it happens this many times of late its hard to say if we should look more at the coaches or at the players but probably both.
Realizations: 1. Coaches get too much credit for failures and for successes. realizations unrelated to this specific thread 2. Fans have become more negative not less with the team's improvement. 3. I'm not having a lot of fun participating on this forum lately. 4. Time for a break.
A depressing realization: Greg Oden's made of glass and literally has no confidence in his game. He looks like he can't wait for the summer break.
Yeah, after that monumental ass beating by 1 very good player and a host of, literally, scrubs & over the hill ballers, it was time for some serious soul searching about our unrealistic expectations. But, as MrJayremmie states, it's sports and it's still fun and even right to think you have a beter team than you really do. That's what makes us fans. But make no mistake, last night was no fluke. It was a team schooling us in uniminaginable ways and proving we are certainly not yet ready to be a prime time team. I wonder if KP is having second thoughts about not making a trade?
Are you saying they receive too much credit by the posters here in this board or by all the sports community?
Doubt it, because unlike most of us rabid fans, he's interested more in the long haul than in winning a few more games this season. It's fun to talk about trade rumors, but none of us know the reality of what is offered and what is demanded in the real world of NBA trading. I'm certainly not going to second guess KP for deciding to pass on a midseason trade if he has a plan for going forward this summer. Based on everything we've seen from him in his offseason dealings, I think we can be pretty sure that he does have a plan.
I did something I've never done and went and paid some respect to the Spurs in their forum: Last night, the Spurs, missing 2 of their 3 good players and playing with non NBA talented scrubs and over the hill ballers of yester year.......... just......... flat........... whipped............ my............. team's.................. ass. And it was no fluke. The Spurs have never been a great team in overall talent, but they are so damn well coached and play so much within themselves that even while they are kind of an ugly team, they are vastly superior to most NBA teams. I have never seen a team where all the players know their specific role and play it so disciplined. Clearly, they dominated the Blazers in every single facet of the game. And we only had 6 turnovers! That was a display of NBA ball the way it is supposed to be played when facing a far superior athletic team. Geez, we just got schooled and whipped like a whore in drag. I can only hope our coaches & players really learned something from the Spurs last night. If so, we will become a better team for it. I just had to come by and tip my hat (something I rarely do) and say how unbeliebably impressed I was (despite my disappointment).
Me too. Their defense stood out to me. They contest every shot. Meanwhile, I'm watching Tony Parker do whatever he wanted at the other end. San Antonio finds a way to take something away from you with their defense. For instance, they were not going to let our perimeter guys get open shots last night. Now, if we had a low post pressence we might have been able to bring them out of that. But when you don't have to send a double team anywhere, you're not vulnerable anywhere. They just play awesome team defense. And they don't have mental lapses. I've seen our team play good defense for a quarter hear, or a half there. These guys play defense for 48 minutes and they don't have a weak unit. Everybody they throw out there commits to that side of the floor. I don't know how Pop gets a former All Star like Finley, who used to score 20 ppg, to buy into a reduced role where he scores less than 10 and has to play lock down defense.
Well said. Last night reminded me of that Iverson Sixers team that made it to the finals with Eric Snow and Mutombo/Ratliff as their second best players. It was a weak East, but still that team actually pulled off the only win in the playoffs against the Shaq/Kobe Lakers playing at their peak. Kind of got me thinking....in another year or two maybe Portland ditches McMillan and rents Larry Brown for a few years. You don't want him coaching this team (too young) but I'd love to see what he could do with these pieces with another year or two under their belt.
Parker was tremendous continually collapsing the Blazer D and the rest of the Spurs played their roles. They hit 9-21 from deep usually on wide open looks... if anything it could have been worse. When Parker has his outside shot going like he did last night he's as tough as any guard in the league... ALL-NBA level. I was a bit disappointed at not seeing Bayless get some run as clearly Blake and Sergio were overmatched by his quickness. I don't know whether Jerryd is going to be the future guy, but PG remains their weakest spot. On the other end the Spurs effectively clogged the paint and benefitted from Brandon missing shots he normally buries. They have a bevy of solid wing players to throw at scoring wings like BR so they can continue to play physical through fouls. Roy and LA were the two worst Blazers last night in +/- and both Blake and Rudy struggled mightily with their outside shots. Tip your hat indeed, good thing there is tomorrow STOMP
Being a Blazer fan is like dating a hot chick who is prone to "headaches". We invest all this time and money in the relationship....and most of the time, all we have to show for it is excuses. If we do get the occasional "joy", we are expected to act pathetically grateful.
And you wonder why that girl looks to dump you when the next guy with a pulse comes along. Jesus, if we aren't the biggest bunch of fucking whiners around.
I'm not confident this team will make the playoffs. The top three teams in the west can simply beat our team with no worries, LA, Spurs, Nuggs. The middle of the pack teams that we need to be beating to secure a home first round in playoffs are showing us how to play second half basketball. On the road we can't beat any western conference team except maybe Sac, Clipps and Timberwolves. This is concerning! Our team defense is tragic and the league know that we don't defend. Blame the coach, players whatever...... but I'll say this, if Oden stays on the sidlelines and this team doesn't make the playoffs, NATE is gone and so are a handful of these Blazers. This team could be a good playoff team but this coach doesn't play to the strengths and youth of this team. Nate coaches the youngest team in the league much like Pop coaches one of the older teams in the league. The problem is our team isn't experienced enough to slow it down and run perfectly executed offensive sets as we've seen. This team gets frustrated and starts hucking up jumpers and when they are off, the other teams win. We've seen this night after night. When this team is winning they are flying all over the court and using their great athletic advantage to wear out the vet teams. I'd also suggest that our team does a hell of a lot more practicing on their foul shots. Games decided by 6 or less points could be won with the amount of shots this team misses on a game by game basis on the line.
You do know that we've beaten the Spurs, the Nuggets, the Jazz, the Rockets, the Suns and the Hornets, right? The only teams we haven't beaten in the race are the L*kers and the Mavs.
