Oct 21 2009
Post: Jazz at Blazers
The NBA: where 80 free throws in a game happens.
I remember when I first heard about the referee strike. I was at media day (horribly uninformed, so sue me) and I was asking Ben from Blazers Edge what he might ask about, and then he mentioned the ongoing referees strike. I said, “Really? It’s not like they can be any worse.” Ben told me otherwise, and goddamn, I am stupid. That level of officiating was atrocious. At the beginning of game, the crowd booed vigorously every bad call, but then, by the second half, we all just gave into it, like those parents on Maury who force their hellion kids to go to boot camp. “Just don’t kill anybody,” they say. When I got on NBA.com this morning and saw this article, I had never been so happy to see Steve Javie’s smirk. Godspeed Mr. Javie, Godspeed.
Still, to blame last night’s loss on the referees would be simply stupid. We lost because we were missing (deep breath) Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, and Andre Miller. That’s five of our top eight players. We were Sacramento Kings-bad last night. Steve Blake was just a mess, making bad decisions, dribbling off his feet. Travis Outlaw scored ten points, but his defense gave up much more than that. Joel Przybilla was good while he was in, but was quickly removed from the game due to some questionable calls. Brandon Roy put up 15 points on 5-9 shooting, which honestly, isn’t bad at all and exactly what you wanted to see from him at this stage of the preseason. He wasn’t forcing anything, but he wasn’t looking to take over the game. I can live with that.
On to the good. Martell Webster is great. It’s that simple. You look at his stat line tonight, it’s downright Troutesque (copyright). 3-11 for 7 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 fouls, 5 turnovers. That’s ugly. That was the only ugly element of his game last night though. He got 2 steals and 4 blocked shots. He was the energy that we wanted coming off the bench. He hyped up his teammates, never gave up on defense, and had the two most exciting plays of the game. One, he received an alley-oop from Ime, the other, he blocked a shot on defense, then came back and did a circus reverse lay-up that went in as he was fouled. He creates mayhem on the court that I love to see matched with Rudy Fernandez. It is just irresistible. He’s the most likely Blazer to recreate the Chaos Dunk that destroyed Neo New York in Charles Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden. Since I haven’t done a preview for a while, and I need to finish them all within the next week, consider this paragraph Martell Webster’s. Here’s your quote and your picture.
That that don’t kill me, can only make me stronger. Now I need you to hurry up now, ’cause I can’t wait much longer.
Logic: he was injured last year, yet he’s coming back this year as hungry as he’s ever been. He is putting his body line more than anyone on the team (save Rudy Fernandez, as mentioned above) and just shows hunger. He makes mistakes right now, but he’s going to be a big-minute rotation player by November.
Back to the recap: Jarron Collins was horribly overmatched as our first center off the bench due to the lack of Greg Oden, and it showed. Boozer and Millsap abused him. We had no answer for them. Juwan Howard did his best as well, but this game was not for him, although his stat line was somewhat impressive, considering (8 and 7).
Dante Cunningham, Ime Udoka, and Jerryd Bayless did most of their work during a fourth-quarter run that got the fans back into the game. After being down 25 points with nine minutes left, this team mixed a great full-court press with Jerryd’s ability to draw fouls and Cunningham’s easy outside stroke. Before we knew it, the Blazers were back in the game, with a ten point deficit with over three minutes to go. Of course, we fell apart a bit, but damn it was fun to watch. I don’t understand why the second unit doesn’t mix in more full-court presses just to throw the other team off balance. They know how to execute it well, and it just wreaks havoc on the opponent’s rhythm.
So, big story of the game: the injuries. Looks like Oden is fine from all the reports, and so is Aldridge. Haven’t heard anything yet about Andre, and Nicolas had a bad bruise. Rudy should be coming back soon. It was great to see the Blazers after five months, but hopefully, the next time I see them will include the guys who actually play in the games.
Wow! Webster? Wow, a young small forward former shooting gaurd getting 4 blocked shots, that’s amazing, i was hoping to see this from webster, i hope he averages at least 1 steal and 1 block shot per game, and if that happens then, he could be in the running for defensive player of the year. That is great news to hear that webster can play defense now, gooooooooooo blazers!