I sort of get the feeling that the Blazers treated the Spurs like they've always treated them, which is to say, "Hey, we match up really well with these guys and have been splitting a lot of regular season series with them lately" and then they got a full dose of "Playoff Spurs" and hopefully that bucket of cold water got their attention ... as to whether or not they have enough native talent to overcome that rude awakening remains to be seen, but at least they know who they are up against now and just how high the bar is.
I didn't see that at all. I saw a team that was scared, like they were bracing for something. They were definitely tense right out of the gate, and I don't think that was because they took the Spurs lightly.
forget all this stuff, we simply played an awful game and SA played great and deserved the win. I think game 2 will be very competitive and we have a solid chance to win it. If we don't and it is not competitive we are in big trouble. Yeah we can "tweek" a few things but bottom line is we need to make some shots as they were there and go after rebounds harder (more effort), no rocket science here.
Yep. We know the regular season Spurs. These Spurs are different. I am 100% confident we have the talent and ability to matchup with them, and matchup with them well. I'm not sure if we have the discipline and are willing to expend the effort and energy to compete with them for 48 minutes. I do, however, think we are capable of mustering it one day. It may be this year, it may be the next, but at least we're seeing it.
That might have been part of it too, but I think it's only human nature to go back to your well of experience to form your baseline of expectations. I'm not really saying that the Blazers took them lightly or thought it would be easy, I'm just saying the Spurs more than almost every team in the league appears to be a very different beast from regular season to the post-season.
If anything, I think we were expecting a different Spurs. I think we completely psyched ourselves out. We were expecting them to come out tougher than usual, and we completely blew a great opportunity. The Spurs really didn't play that great in the first quarter, but we played probably our worst basketball this season. We really shot ourselves in the foot. The second quarter was when the beatdown occurred.
That's just it. Dame doesn't need to launch 3s in this series. He needs to attack the paint. I think he didn't realize he had such an advantage until it was too late. I think he was so used to Howard and Asik blocking his shots that he forgot how good he is. Then the moment Pops puts in green to shut him down is when he launches 3s. Force San Antonio to make adjustments, not the other way around.
Sure he needs to, that's probably what he does best, but the team has to find a way to get him better looks. So he needs to collapse the defense, but he can't abandon his best weapon either.
I guess I should rephrase it. I mean, he needs to force sas to respect his drive game, so his outside shot is less contested.
That's what I'm saying... Attack like this from the gate tomorrow night. Force Pops to adjust, which opens the three for him.
I agree. I'm more discouraged than encouraged by our second half. The Spurs had that huge lead, and all we could do was basically break even while they toyed with us. Oops, sorry, this is the positive thread. My bad!
I believe the refs will proactively work to get this series notted up at 1 apiece. The Blazers need to take advantage of that and give the Spurs Fans reason to say "These refs suck".
I disagree. Wes and Nic is one of the best 3-4 punches in the league. I can only think of Miami (Bosh-Allen) as maybe being better. Find a third/fourth scoring tandem that is better than ours. Maybe Indiana's Stephenson-West.
Can still get a split on the road and wear down the Spurs. Youth is on our side and Parker only had one of those games out of 7 vs Dallas. I think it's just like Wes said..fine tuning your game. Need 25-30 pts from the bench somehow as well.
The Spurs were still riding high from kicking the Mavs ass a couple nights before. I've always felt that in the playoffs that the more time you have off between games the more you lose the rhythm you had going. Most people don't agree and think that rest is most important.
