Mar 20 2009
A Feel-Good Loss
Last night, for the first time this season, a feel-good loss happened. If the Blazers had a full compliment of players, it would have been disappointing, for sure. However, the Blazers had the ball boy as the ninth man in the rotation last night. It was some tough luck. No matter that, the Blazers played some inspired defense for the third game during this road trip and really hit Cleveland in the mouth early, both figuratively and literally.
Greg Oden’s total disrespect of LeBron James is exactly what every Blazer fan wanted to see. It’s nice to have a rookie that doesn’t care about LeBron’s pedigree. Especially when it’s Greg. Dude’s been through more in his first two years than LeBron has been through in his entire career. He has to earn back respect from the people who called him soft due to freak injuries. LeBron’s never been injured. It’ll take that kind of tribulation to really decide where to rank LeBron on the list of greatest athletes of all time.
Joel keeps on playing like Joel, even though his Golden Gophers were put down.
Channing Frye was basically doing a LaMarcus Lite job. He hit his outside shots on the pick and pop and almost had no let-down between himself and the man he was replacing. It’s always good to know that Channing can step up and play when he’s absolutely needed. Reassuring.
Brandon Roy looked off and awkward throughout the game, but still ended up with a solid stat line. There’s no use explaining how this dude does it anymore. He’s an alien that exists in a different basketball-playing dimension. I assume he has tentacles in this dimension that he uses to push off on defensive players and guide the ball in on and one calls. Damn aliens.
Every other guard was pretty much horrible. We win this game with a few more three pointers. Hell, we probably win the game if Cleveland doesn’t set the NBA record for fewest turnovers in regulation. We probably win if Brandon Roy is a step back at the end of the game, or that shot goes in. We probably win if Brandon takes more than one shot in overtime. But honestly, the fact that the phrase “we probably win” exists after facing the team with the league’s best record and a 30-1 mark at home is incredible on its own. That’s a feel-good loss.
