Ah, the NBA season has reached us again and all is right with the world. At least it seems to be this year with an exciting Blazers team ready to make a run at the playoffs (healthy Oden or not).
We all know the performance against the Lakers was mostly first night jitters coupled with the team's confusion about Oden's presence on the floor. I'm not taking anything away from the Lakers. They are legitimately good...no, great. They are legitimately great. In fact, this Laker's team could go down as one of the best all time and that's no hyperbole. This is a once every 10-15 years kind of team. (Excuse me, I just vomited in my mouth.)
So the Blazers shouldn't feel too bad about what happened on opening night. Granted, there were few positive things to take from that game, and it was immediately apparent that McMillan has a whole lot of decisions/adjustments to be made. But I, like most of you, was more curious about how we would respond at our home opener and, subsequently, the next night in Phoenix.
Let's start off with the good. Against both San Antonio and Phoenix, the Blazers looked faster, more athletic, and more cohesive than most of last year and a definite improvement from the Laker game.
Against the Spurs, we got the leadership type of play we need from both Roy and Aldridge and the new additions of Rudy and Batum are already paying dividends. We all anticipated that Rudy, at least, would likely be the spark plug for this team but I think it's safe to say, even this early in the season, that both of them are going to exceed expectations.
Channing Frye and Joel are both in great shape. It's can be easy to think since you're not going to be the starter, since Greg Oden is going is the new face of the franchise, since we have a deep team, that you don't need to come out ready to run decent minutes. I'm proud of both Joel and Channing for being ready to bring it from game 1.
McMillan played a masterful game against Popovich, getting the match ups we needed most of the time. Sure, he probably could have put Batum on Parker earlier in the game and he could have found more ways to take advantage of/prepare the team for the zone D the Spurs threw us. However, some of that goes on the players, too. There was one sequence were Rudy absolutely demanded the ball on the far side of the court because he recognized the poor zone match up on the baseline. Those head's up plays rub off, they get everyone to pay attention and look for the match ups, make the extra pass, see the whole court.
Now, for the bad.
This team could easily be 0-3 right now. The Spurs shouldn't have been in position to make a 15 footer at the buzzer to win it. One of the major problems that plagued us last year is still rearing its ugly head...
Perimeter defense.
Fisher, Farmar, Parker, and Nash all pretty much penetrated at will. Blake is a decent defender against a straight ahead PG. Unfortunately, our schedule is riddled with slasher/scorer PGs. This Blazers team doesn't have the discipline yet to use help defense correctly the majority of the time. This leads to easy kick outs (Spurs) or open cutters (Suns). Something has to give. We can't allow PGs to get in the lane at will.
Maybe Batum, with his wingspan and quickness, will be the answer. But putting him on the other team's PG means we can't use his length against the 2 and 3. It also means he has to play against the other team's starting unit, placing him more in our starting unit. And that ultimately leads to less playing time for Blake or the SF, be it Outlaw, Rudy, or Martell.
I also have a bone to pick with Roy. Why does he consistently hold the ball and wait for the defender to set his feet? I can't count the number of times he did this against the Spurs and Suns. He did the same thing last year so I don't think he's just easing his way into the season. Roy likes to take the pass, tuck the ball on his hip, take that slow half-step back with his lead foot, and stand still for 2-3 seconds looking at the basket, the defense, the lane, etc.
STOP IT! All that does is give time for the defender to close on you, cut off the left or right lane, and allow the other players to make defensive adjustments. Why is no one else talking about this?
Roy is good enough that he can usually still take advantage of the match up. But if we want to start tearing up defenses the way they are tearing us up, he's going to have to make more moves as soon as he receives the ball. This will force defenses to collapse and that always opens up the floor.
The last negative I'm going to talk about is nothing the players or the coaches can do anything about. We are getting about half the calls we should be getting, continuing a theme from last year. I don't know if this is because we are still perceived as being the young and inexperience team. Or maybe we're allowing teams to physically dominate us (don't kid yourselves, it's true) and the refs always give more calls to the aggressive team. Whatever it is, it's painfully obvious that we're going to have to fight the refs, at least in the early going this year. I hope the calls even out later in the year, but don't hold your breath.
All in all, I'm still very excited about this team and our playoff chances this year. There's a lot to be enthused about, a little to be worried about (but there always is), and 78 more games to go.
Go Blazers!
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