Blazers recap

As I've noted before, in my former blogging life I did a fair amount of Blazer discussion. Having been a P-Town resident for at least a few years, I've had a chance to fall in love with the home team, then to be disgusted by how they were turned into a joke, and now I have hope for the future.

So, it was with pleasure that I took the Blazers up on their offer to come watch a free game (nothing special, I suspect most of us there were taking up that offer), and I looked forward to getting to see our new crew in action.

So far this pre-season, things have been up-and-down. The Blazers showed great promise (and unselfish play) in a gritty win over the Sonics last week, but then displayed another side in an abysmal performance against Denver over the weekend. On Monday, Blazers coach Nate McMillan found himself calling practice early in favor of dragging the team into the locker room for a closed-door discussion after seeing a lack of hustle and effort on the floor, which apparently reminded him of what he saw in the Denver game.

So, I was eager to see which Blazers team would show up.

Starters for Tuesday's game against the LA Clippers were Theo Ratcliff at center, Zach at PF, Darius at SF, prize rookie Martell Webster at SG, and Sebastian Telfair at the point. I imagine that this will be close to our starting line-up at season's end (Przzyzyzyzbilla will be our starting center as soon as he recovers from a nagging injury), but I was excited to see how this group would interact.

First Quarter
The game started out with a clear indication of things to come, with the Clippers getting the tip-off and reeling off 6 unanswered points before the home team could finally get on the board. The Blazers shooting in the first quarter was pretty poor, which accounts for us nearly getting doubled up by the end of the period. A few observations:

• Juan Dixon, who subbed in at the point, is tiny. It's comical, after seeing him on the floor, to consider prior management claims that he was being brought in to shore up the point, SG, and as a possible back up at SF.
• Martell is, indeed, an exciting prospect. He has a great shot, and he obviously has a nice balance of confidence in his abilities combined with a healthy respect for the team concept. But his defense is weak right now--not for lack of effort, but for lack of talent. This will develop under Nate, but it might take until next season for it to become apparent.
• Zach...well, he's still Zach. Still a selfish shooter, still not passing enough, still not choosing his selfish shots wisely. Still the Black Hole.
• This team is generally not physical, especially with Dixon at the point. Until this team learns to collapse the defense, drive the lane, crash the boards, and just generally make other teams work, were going to continue to struggle with poor shooting, poor rebounding, and losing efforts.
• What happened to the lighted stat boards that ringed the Garden? The ones that would keep you apprised of free-throw percentages, scores from around the league, and such. As I looked down into the bowl from the nose-bleeds, trying to get an idea of how low our FG percentage was, there was no help in sight. I hope this isn't permanent, because those are truly an enhancement to the game experience.

End of Q1: Blazers 19, Clips 32

Second Quarter

Not much improvement noted in this quarter, except that the Blazers defense and rebounding picked up, allowing them to hold the Clips to just 13 points in the period (although the Blazers were only able to cobble together 9) as both teams started to experiment with line-ups. This quarter saw the first pre-season play from Sergei Monya, who looked better than recent press reports would indicate. Steve Blake also stepped in, although absolutely nothing about his performance is memorable. Some thoughts:

• Sebastian's the most aggressive player on the Blazers squad, slashing the lane, driving to the hoop and drawing a ton of fouls on the way. Also, he showed great heart on defense, at one point causing a 10-second violation for the Clips and at another going to the floor fighting for a ball. I have high hopes for this kid, and think the Blazers did the right thing in bringing in some challengers so that Telfair has to stay sharp and show forth effort instead of just counting on the starting job.
• Monya has a nice touch on his shots, and surprisingly really gets after it on both ends of the floor, dispite being mismatched in size and power by most people out there.
• Darius is looking pretty good so far. I still hate that head bump thing, though. Prompted my friend to say "what does he think he is, a billy goat?" which doesn't entirely make sense to me, but which he asked me to throw in here...
• Theo's useless. Despite his previous billing as a defensive dynamo and a shot-block machine, he was another player who you had to actually try to watch to even remember he was out there.

Q2: Blazers 28, Clips 45

Third Quarter

The Blazers finally started to turn on their offense in this quarter, finally scoring 20+ points in the period (although their defense got worse and they gave up as many as they made). At this point, I was starting to get discouraged. I was out of beer money, and really didn't want to preside over this loss any longer. Some notes:

• This team, like the last few we've put on the court, settles for too many outside shots and doesn't get to the rim enough. Z-Bo continues to mistake himself for a jump-shooter, and now that he's hanging out near the perimeter, he isn't in the mix for offensive boards. And, when the team does get near the hoop, there's no will to finish.
• Along those lines, remember when Zach was a 20/10 guy? He got there crashing the boards, tenaciously seeking out loose balls, and just scrapping. That Zach died as soon as Rasheed was sent off and the job was secure. That's the Zach we need back, however.

Q3: Blazers 54, Clips 71

Fourth Quarter

Honestly, at this point I was just trying to convince my friend that it was time to leave. We went through a few rounds of negotiations before agreeing that if the Clips took a 19 point lead, we'd call it a game. Ten seconds later, the Clips obliged me and we were on our way. However, I heard on The Fifth Quarter that the Blazers lost 85-99 (or there-abouts), which makes sense given what I saw.

Final thoughts

This team is going to be something special, but it's going to take time. Martell needs to pick up defensive playing. Darius needs to remain consistent. Joel needs to get healthy. Z-Bo needs to learn the team concept and also get enough confidence in his surgically-repaired knee so that he can get after it again like the guy we used to know in that uniform. And, with our team's average age being 24 years old, we need to get rid of Theo and bring in some veteran leadership with some credentials.

But I'm happy with the team that we have. It has an exciting future, I think we might finally keep our noses clean for a whole season, and in the process it should be fun to watch some of these kids develop...