Enough introduction. Right now, according to these folks, the Blazers are at the top of the west. Is this flawed and skewed? Of course: all stats are. Considering the ease of our schedule and our ridiculously high differential (+7.89, highest in the West, higher than Dallas by 1.13) we have taken the title for best in the conference. What does this mean for the team? Little to nothing. It’s just a nice little fact that we can hang our hats on, that the Blazers are playing very well right now, and they’re producing at an extremely high level. It’s something to hang our hats on after giving up a 19 point lead last game.

Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. were at the game. Is there a reason they were down here? I don’t know, I never got to ask. Maybe they were here because they wanted to see Seattle talents such as Brandon Roy or Martell Webster. Maybe they just wanted to watch some basketball. All I know, is that this past season I missed out on seeing Junior up in Seattle, so it was cool seeing him at the Rose Garden. Then again, the M’s signed him again to another one year contract, so I’ll get to see him do on the Mariners what Juwan Howard does with the Blazers.

So, last night’s game was the third I’ve been to this year, and before anything, that opening video has issues. Basically, it’s Storm Large performing Ballroom Blitz. It’s a mix of a great local talent and a glam rock classic. The only issue is it doesn’t do anything to pump up the crowd. There’s no forward momentum. It’s shot like a music video from 1984, with some basketball scenes spliced in. By the end, you’re just wishing it was over. Compare that to the horribly unoriginal “Welcome to the Jungle” one from last year, where people just yell “This is Portland” over and over again. At least it builds up to something and feels like the whole crowd was part of something. Another one used plenty over the last few years was the 300-style “O Fortuna” with the players in black and white. Who didn’t love the unintentional humor of Ike Diogu and Steve Blake trying to look like badasses and then finishing off with Trav’s scream? Nit-picking, I know.

Apparently, there was a game last night too. Things got rolling fast and got rolling well in the first quarter, as we pulled away almost immediately. Nothing too exciting, just an array of jumpshots and well-placed passes. The biggest topic was “Who’s the douche on the Pistons?” That’s Swede Jonas Jerebko, folks. We were up four after one, ten after two, and twenty after three. This is the prologue to the fourth quarter. By the time the fourth hit, we fans were sufficiently bored. Fans in the 300 section started a wave. But that wasn’t enough. Not to be outdone by the poor people, the bottom bowl started their own wave going at a different rate. This is what passed for excitement last night through the first 40 minutes.

Then the Pistons started scoring. They would make aggressive plays. They were pressing Steve Blake, who coughed up the ball whenever someone got within three feet of him. Personal bubble issues, I suppose. Beyond that, they started hitting. After shooting about 33% for most of the game, they raised it to 39% to finish, and shot a bunch of free throws, and hit all of them. During this, we wallowed and missed free throws constantly (at one point, Andre Miller missed four in a row). Well, after shot after shot went down, the game got down to a one point lead. The Pistons erased 19 points in less than ten minutes. Luckily, the chokers of the night, Steve Blake and Andre Miller, played hero, as Blake nailed a three pointer to put us up four, and Miller knocked down a few free throws. Fun moment: when the Pistons were fouling, Brandon Roy had the ball and passed it up to Miller, every single person in the arena groaned (Roy and Miller included) like they had just seen someone accidentally hit a kid when jumping into the stands. Anyway, we won, so hooray.

What to take from this game? Well, that’s two games in a row we’ve given up giant leads. I have to say, missing Travis Outlaw probably plays a part in that. Not in his scoring, but just in our lack of depth. Juwan Howard has been absolutely terrible and does not make up for Travis’ absence in any way. He’s Travis with less defense, less offense, and more hair. Beyond that, what was Nate thinking in the early moments of the fourth? He leaves in a tired second unit against the hungry Pistons. He should have brought in Cunningham and Bayless, guys that are gunning for playing time and would have played their hearts out, rather than the half-assed stuff we had to sit through.

On to the individuals:

The Centers Joel brought it, Greg Oden didn’t. During that comeback stretch, the Pistons offensive rebounded almost every miss. That’s on Greg. He’s started doing this thing where he taps at the ball when it’s nearby rather than try to reel it in. Well, tapping worked about 3 times last night for us, and 5 times for the Pistons. Just grab the ball, dude. His +/- was -15.

Point Guards Miller and Blake choked and came back. This was detailed before. One thing, though, is that Andre Miller is a master of throwing over the shoulder passes to guys on the break. It’s like a quarterback throwing a ball to a receiver on a post route.

Brandon Roy I could write shooting guards, but whatever. Roy owned the game for the first three quarters, doing almost all his damage, and then just kind of disappeared in the fourth, as the team forgot they had one of the best players in the league on the floor wearing white and red. Final line is the Roy-like 20-4-5. Can we just officially call the 20-5-5 the Roy Special?

LaMarcus Aldridge LaMarcus showed a bevy of moves down in the post en route to twenty points. He even rebounded a bit, too. He just needs to keep on doing this. At one point, Roy and LaMarcus had scored more than half of the team’s points.

Everyone Else Let’s just not talk about it. It was nasty. Marty was bad, Howard was bad, Rudy was bad.

Either way, a win is a win, and honestly, as a fan at the game, I preferred it the way we got it. I’d rather have a few moments of doubt, unease, and excitement than just 48 straight minutes of surety.

Anyway, we played a few games, won ‘em, and now we have yet another one this afternoon. Considering that this is the longest road trip of the season, I would have been quite happy winning three games. We’re playing with house money right now with four games in a row. It’s a lucky fluke that we’re playing the hardest game of the trip at the end. Because of that, we’re either going to let down tremendously because, honestly, the stakes really aren’t that high, or we may summon everything we have left just to hang our hats on a 5-0 road trip to start the season. I’ll blame Nate if we do bad, just because it’s fun.

Friday night, we took on the Hornets, and yet again we beat them. It’s always fun to watch the Hornets lose, not because of any grudge I have against Chris Paul (I have none), but it’s a beautiful thing to see David West fail. He’s the classic Shawn Marion type player, great with a great point guard, terrible otherwise, yet they have too large of an ego to realize. A strange wrinkle with the Hornets against the Blazers is that Chris Paul never seems to play up to the peak of his abilities against the scarlet and black, unusual considering every fast guard in the league puts up career numbers with Blake on them. Could this be game planning? The same pattern held Friday night, as it was pretty much a no doubter the entire way through and extremely ugly, as no team hit above 40%. It was the kind of game to be happy about winning for about an hour, and then forget it ever happened.

And Charlotte was more of the same. It’s scary how bad we’re playing right now and winning. I almost want the Blazers to lose just in order to wake up and come back to their senses. They are cruising against these bad teams. On the flip side, the criticism “they are cruising” is something that you can only say about good teams. The only story from this game was Travis’ injury, and you can see those thoughts in the last post. (Basic gist: Travis has improved, and our lack of depth from Batum’s injury makes this sting.) When the only highlight of the game is LaMarcus Aldridge getting elbowed in the back of the head, you’re not really playing a gem.

Why couldn’t this have happened last season?

Okay, that’s mean. No one wants a player to get injured, no matter how they play. But, this is especially true when the player is showing serious growth for what seems like the first time in his career. It looked like Travis finally got it. He was rebounding, he was playing defense, and he was picking his spots smartly. Now he’s injured.

What does this mean? I’m not exactly sure yet. The most obvious guess is that the Blazers are worse. Where before they had three quality small forwards to start the season, they now have only one. Then again, Travis’ greatest use (as it was last year, too), was at the power forward position, where we don’t know exactly how he can be replaced. Sure, there’s Juwan Howard, but does anyone honestly want him in at this point? On the other hand, there’s Dante Cunningham, who’s shown a little in garbage time and preseason, but will get a chance to have his Batum-esque coming out very soon. If Dante comes on big, we won’t be hurt too badly, but the more likely situation is we may lose a game or two that we shouldn’t.

The other comment that’s come up a few times is Ime Udoka. We had a decent small forward on the team at the end of camp and we dropped him for the injured Patty Mills. Honestly, at the time, it seemed like a harmless notion, just the owner getting the one player he wanted on the team. And who cared, we had three point guards and three small forwards, all of them healthy. It should be his call. Well, Paul Allen was wrong. Now I hear the Beard’s cyborg ninja undead assassins knocking on my door. Nice knowing you.

This blog has said a lot of negative things about Travis, but his growth and effort this season has been something to behold. He earned his spot as a major player on this team, and now he’ll be out for a couple of months. Let’s just wish him the best, for his sake, and for our sake.

Once again, it was a complete team effort with five scorers in double figures and no scorers above 20. The starters somewhat dug us a hole because they couldn’t make threes, then Rudy and Martell came in and filled that gap. It was just a massacre. It’s hard to describe one individual performance by a player not named Greg Oden because, honestly, no other player mattered. Every other player did exactly what you expected them to do, whether it was Joel blocking and rebounding, Martell and Rudy hitting threes, Miller getting assists, or Dante Cunningham getting a three trillion. Everyone succeeded in their specialties, so that’s why we won.

Still, the best stat for the night comes from the +/- column of the score sheet. Last night, Ryan Gomes played 32 minutes. In those 32 minutes, the Timberwolves outscored the Blazers by 12 points. That means, during the 16 minutes that Gomes was out, the Blazers won by 35 points. No other Timberwolf had a positive number.

Unfortunately, that ridiculousness had to come to an end, as the Blazers had the Grizzlies out of the game by the end of the third quarter, and continued to pile on after that. Basically, they did what a winning team does: give the other team a glimmer of hope for a half, kick the other team in the face in the third quarter, and then sit on them and maybe even break wind in the fourth quarter. It’s mean, but it’s been the way of life for the Spurs during the entire decade.

Joel Przybilla Murder Watch - I’ve been meaning to keep this as a running update, but I often forget. Obviously, Violet Palmer and Dick Bavetta made the list last night. However, as a side note, they were surprisingly not bad considering their reputations as the two worst officials in the league. Kudos!

Brandon Roy - He does what he needs to do. He didn’t score last game because he didn’t need to. He scored this game, in addition to dropping seven assists just because he can. Moral of the story, never worry about Brandon, he’ll get his.

LaMarcus, Andre, Steve - LaMarcus put together a double double, Andre Miller missed a bunch of easy lay-ups, and Steve Blake kept making three pointers. Whenever Blake hits 50% or above from three for a game, the team is basically unstoppable. No one can sag off of Roy, and when they do, Blake kills them. That’s the only argument to start Blake over Miller, and considering it happens only once every four games, it’s not a very effective one.

The Bench - Nothing impressive. Travis reverted to his old Travis ways in front of the home crowd, although he had the highlight of the night with fearsome dunk. Rudy got his three-point stroke back a bit, hitting two. Martell had some trouble hitting from the field, but he got to the foul line. It seems like he’s getting hit hardest by this lineup change, which is too bad.

Greg Oden - If you need one reason for the Blazers pulling away, look at Greg Oden. He took over the game again last night with his defense. He only had 14 points, six rebounds, and two blocks, but he was everywhere once again. Keep it up big man. Which brings me to the All-Star ballot. Because I’m a terrible homer, I voted Brandon Roy (which is barely defensible, as someone who is in mild denial could pick him over Chris Paul) and LaMarcus Aldridge (indefensible, picking him over Carmelo Anthony). Then I picked Oden, tried to come up with a defense, and failed totally. He’s getting beat by Erick Dampier right now. (Marc Gasol is also ahead of him, but he gets most of his stats from his team’s pace, and obviously, Oden’s much, much better than Gasol, judging from last night. Even though Gasol won the stat battle, no one’s watching that game and saying Marc is the one they want.)

San Antonio

What’s there to say, we went for a run against the Spurs and they seriously could not keep up. The game looked like it was over after the first quarter, with the only question being whether we’d hold onto the lead. Professionally, we did. This is something the Blazers did so well last season, not losing a game after having the lead at halftime (the stat was something like 37-0), and it’s something that the current iteration of the team has to aim for, and remember.

Stars of the game included Greg Oden, who dominated the greatest power forward of all time, after Duncan was able to tag him with two quick fouls to begin the game. Blocked shots abound, good ball movement, and glimpses of Shaq, Orlando Edition in his post moves. Greg’s starting to emerge.

Andre Miller turned in his best performance of the season, despite the numbers of ten points and four assists not telling the story. He controlled the game and kept the team loose. He was everywhere on the floor. I hate to use the phrase he did the things that didn’t show up on the scoreboard, but he did the things that didn’t show up on the scoreboard.

Everyone else was pretty dece, as Martell continued to fuel the blog’s man crush with his dunk, Travis continued putting the demons of last season behind him, and Brandon put up the standard 24, 5, and 5.

One thing that I did not miss from the Blazers-Spurs meetings last year was Manu Ginobili. Despite his incredible natural talent as a bat slayer, he is still the worst player to watch in the NBA. Now that his running buddy Bruce Bowen is gone, it’s obvious that Ginobili is mostly responsible for everything that makes San Antonio so reprehensible. The constant flopping, the talking to the refs, the getting every call, the baldspot.

Timberwolves

Wow, that team was incredibly different. We decided that picking up the fast break scoring from 5 points to 12 wasn’t enough in the last game, so we upped it to 21. It was scary how athletic the Blazers were. This is the team we have all been hoping to see over the last two years, running with amazing outlet passes from our big rebounders. Everyone was committed.

Miller starred on the stat sheet, this time leading the team in scoring, but the biggest deal with him and the rest of the back court was rebounding. They weren’t letting Joel and Greg do everything. Andre had 4, Blake had 4, Brandon had 6, Rudy had 5. That’s nearly twenty rebounds from the back court. Compare that to the 5 total from Minnesota’s back court.

It’s unfair, though, to single out someone for individual praise in this game when it was so clearly a team effort. Everyone ran, and everyone passed. Sure, one player scored more than everyone else, but no one player was more important than the other. The +/- for each player (yes I’m using the stat again) bottomed out at +10 and topped out at +13. That’s beyond impressive. No let down from starters to bench, just everyone playing at the same sustained level. (I fibbed a bit with this, as Dante Cunningham -2′d in his debut.) Beyond that, we’re tough to beat when shooting 90% free throws.

By the way, I was looking to do a +/- post again, but 82games.com is back. You should all check it out. Martell is still our best in terms of the stat with a +30 and a +9.7 per 48, and Andre Miller is still at the back of the pack of the regulars with a -13 and a -3.9 per 48. Near Webster are Brandon, Greg, Steve, and Travis. Aldridge is a surprisingly low -3 for the season, considering he led the Blazers in the stat last year. Even more than last week, you have to take these +/- stats with a grain of salt, as we’ve radically changed our style, and we are about to go on a road trip against some bad teams after playing some of the NBA’s best (yes, even the Thunder).

One last stat-head stat: Oden has a PER of 18.5. His opponents average a PER of 6.6. That net of nearly +12 is total and complete domination. Anyone who still wants Joel Przybilla as the starter should see a therapist.

Okay, I say that every season after the second loss due to questionable player management by Nate McMillan, and it’s mostly meant as a joke, but still: Fire Nate.

What changed from last year to this year with Nate? Sure, Batum’s out, but Webster’s a better player (I said it), and we lost Sergio Rodriguez for Andre Miller. For some reason, though, Nate has no clue who Andre Miller is. I can give him a clue, because I’ve said it quite a few times in this blog: he’s a rich man’s Sergio Rodriguez. That’s all you need to know Nate. Don’t play him like he’s not Sergio Rodriguez - he is. Would you ever put Sergio in with Steve Blake? No. Don’t do it with Andre. Remember last year when you would go to a lineup of Blake, Roy, Rudy, Travis, and LaMarcus, with either a bit of Greg and Joel sprinkled in? That worked! We won a lot of games with that group. The key behind what you did though, was not the variety of the lineups, but the consistency.

Anyway, a game happened last night and we got destroyed because Nate McMillan can’t do his job. That’s wrong, a few players contributed some crappiness to help Nate fulfill his destiny as Doc Rivers mk. II.

Andre Miller - He was crap. Don’t look at the 11 assists. Can you actually remember any of them? Off the top of my head, I can only count two. He got those assists because the guys were making jumpers, not because of a brilliant pass. He also had by far the worst +/- of the night, clocking in with an atrocious -13 (Steve Blake had a +2 so we can’t even blame the Blake/Miller lineup for this). Dude doesn’t fit. He needs to learn how to soon, or we’re going to see a lot more of what we got tonight. Andre Miller is not an answer to any question we want asked. (Here’s a question he is an answer to: “How do you turn a 54-win team into a 41-win team?”)

Joel Przybilla - Great job, Joel. You were good on defense, and you had a lot of hustle. Oh, you were held out of the game after playing only 19 minutes. Damn refs, they must have been all over…oh, you only had two fouls. Well, it’s good that Greg Oden was doing so well to keep you ou…oh, Oden only played 16 minutes due to foul trouble. So we had a center in for only 35 minutes last night, and we got outrebounded by ten. See, here’s the issue with Nate McMillan, and it’s been boiling during his entire tenure here: for all the reputation he has as a great defensive coach, he has absolutely no trust in his defense. Last season, we would consistently bring Travis Outlaw in for his offense to help us come back when it was his lack of defense that caused the deficit and made it worse. Well, now that Travis is reliable, Nate’s found a different way to do this - he pulls the goalie, he puts four guards in a lineup. When we fall behind Nate doesn’t understand that defense and rebounding can create offense, even though that was the reason for our lead in the first quarter. Oh well, Nate, do what you please, you’re the guy on the one year contract.

Everyone Else - Mediocre, by their standards. However, mediocre by their standards should be enough to win a game. LaMarcus and Brandon put up 20, Marty took over the game for a little while, and Travis got in the scoring action too with 19 points of his own. All good and normal Blazer things that usually contribute to a win. Except we lost.

So, final word, this team is good, but it needs a steady hand to lead it. Fire Nate, at least until he gets a little confidence in the team.

The Rockets

Wow, we sucked. Nothing you can really say. Brandon Roy and LaMarcus played near flawless games and still couldn’t get us a win. Most of that is probably due to not one other player being able to make a shot. It was sad. Upside, that was probably our first legitimate offensive performance. Downside, that was without a doubt our worst defensive performance. Okay, I’ll level with you, I watched only a little under half of this game because the Ducks dismantling USC was much more pressing. So, uh, go Ducks.

The Thunder

Wow, the refs are rusty. That was a rough game to watch. Just constant fouling and no calls. Before the last second foul flurry from the Thunder in order to stop the clock, they were up on total free throws by nearly twenty. Any impartial observer could see that the Blazers missed out on at least 8 free throws over the course of the game. It was not good. Still, the Blazers won, and lets let individual players tell the story.

Travis Outlaw - Travis is still wrestling with his old self out there on the floor. Gone are most of the mistakes that had us groaning throughout his career, but he still lets his Dark Passenger emerge at inopportune moments, doing his shimmy and sidestep at the top of the key with 15 left on the shot clock and lapsing on defense. Don’t let this make you think I’m down on Travis, I’m not. He’s much improved, and for the first time in a while, I’m happy to see him in a game.

Martell Webster - Trail Post loves Martell. I blame Saturday night’s loss on the lack of Martell. Only 15 minutes for the greatest small forward of all time? What’s wrong, Nate? I exaggerate. Martell played big minutes Sunday and he was a big part in holding the anointed Scoring Leader of 2010 to 3/21 shooting. He also brought down the Chaos Dunk, this time on elbow-happy banger Etan Thomas. (Seriously, though, Etan Thomas may be one of the worst players to be against in the league. Any mediocre rebounder who swings elbows like that is trouble.)

Greg Oden - He beat Kevin Durant in the head to head again. In games where they’ve played each other, more often than not, Oden comes out better than Durant. Don’t know why it happens, but I’m happy it does. He played like Oden again, making a difference on both ends. Just cut down on the threes in the key.

Steve Blake - Welcome back. I don’t know what clicked, but I’m happy it did. We need some sort of production from our point guards to be a good team, and Steve played like last year’s version of him. Our offense doesn’t work when he can’t make his three pointer reliably.

Everyone Else - Meh. Just to be an a-hole, and because 82games.com hasn’t updated for the new season, I’m going to do the week in +/-, showing you how our guys are looking on the floor through week one.
Name: #’s: Overall: Avg
Martell +14 +9 -6 +12 = +29 7.25
Aldridge -7 -13 +8 +12 = 0 0
Oden +6 +6 -5 +9 = +16 4
Roy -1 +1 -1 +12 = +11 2.75
Blake +4 -5 +1 +13 = +13 3.25
Outlaw +15 +5 -2 +3 = +21 5.25
Miller +1 -1 -6 -8 = -14 -3.5
Rudy +9 -10 -3 -4 = -8 -2
Joel +4 -6 -6 -2= -10 -2.5
Howard -1 -2 = -3 -1.5

So, that’s ugly and I don’t feel like making it pretty, but I’ll run it down for you. Thus far, Martell and Travis have been by far our best players in terms of the incredibly flawed +/- stat. However, anyone who’s watched a game thus far this season, could probably assume that Martell would be up near the top. His energy and effort completely changes the complexion of games. Travis’ new commitment to defense and rebounding is obviously showing up in this. LA was plain bad to start the season, yet recovered nicely over the weekend. Oden has been the other consistently good player for the team, another fact that’s been obvious over the games. Roy has been middling at +1/-1 through the first three, which is probably a product of time played and the closeness of those games, though he picked up a big + with the rest of the starting unit last night. Blake has been good, but did almost all of his positive last night.

Now onto the bad. Except for Travis Outlaw, the bench has disappointed +/- wise. (I never thought I’d write those words.) Surprisingly, Rudy got his worst +/- in his best game, the Denver match. That could be due to his being in the whole time when we lost the lead in the fourth quarter. Joel has been pretty uniformly low, though his foul trouble (10.8 per 48) has been much more disturbing than any +/- amount. Andre Miller has been the weak link constantly, with his best performance being a +1 in the first game and never getting above that again so far this season. After a week, it looks like the most likely candidates for fan hatred and scapegoatdom this season are probably Rudy Fernandez and Andre Miller (congrats Trav!). And by that, I mean Andre Miller exclusively. He’s dealing with a perfect storm of not fitting in well, not communicating with the city well, and just not playing well. Fans are bound to hate him. Due to the small sample size we have, it’s wrong to jump to just about any conclusions, save that Martell Webster deserves much more time, and that it’s a blessing that Travis Outlaw has been so incredibly reliable after Batum’s injury.

We are not screwed. We played like crap. Carmelo played out of his mind. We only lost by 3 points. We’re not that bad and Denver is not that good. Let’s just leave it at that.

Nate McMillan has no idea what he’s doing. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It seems that he still doesn’t know what works and what doesn’t on this new roster. It’s amazing what a difference replacing Sergio with Andre is.

Martell Webster makes your dreams come true. He’s awesome.

Greg Oden is not a delicate flower. Yes, he pretty much blew the game last night, but no, he’s not going regress into some sort of depressed troll living under the Broadway Bridge (No matter how awesome it would be.).

Travis Outlaw, keep it up. Nate may not be playing you, but we have noticed your renewed commitment to defense, and absolutely love it.

Rudy, you seem sad without Sergio. Lo siento.

Finally, over at Blazers Edge, Ben asked the question what line up should finish a game, and my answer was WAFOR. In case you don’t know, that’s Webster, Aldridge, Fernandez, Oden, and Roy. It basically combines everything beautiful about Blazer basketball into one sweet package. Non-stop rebounding from Aldridge/Oden/Webster, non-stop movement from Webster/Fernandez, and good defense from Oden/Occasionally Webster. And Brandon Roy being godlike.

Sleep well Blazer fans, tomorrow is another game.