It’s all my fault.
Let me be the first to apologize. During the halftime break, two fans who weren’t watching the game emailed me to ask how the Raptors looked through 2 quarters. After watching the first half of this game, I offered the following response:
“I can’t see us losing to this team tonight.”
One quarter later, I would have stuck with my statement. The game might have been too close for my liking, but it just felt secure. But as any jilted bride will tell you, nothing’s said and done until you got that ring on your finger (cousin Sandy, I told you so!). We dominated 6/8 quarters the past two games and almost lost them both. Lack of focus? Lazy defense? One thing’s for sure…
…don’t blame fatigue. I won’t hear it. This is a group of conditioned professionals (Derrick Martin notwithstanding) that get paid millions of dollars to ensure they have more than enough in the tank to hold on for a measly 4 minutes. 4 minutes! Run the clock, get to the free throw line, make a couple from the stripe, tick tock, tick tock, game’s over, lobster for dinner.
So what do WE do? Take contested jumpshots with increasing levels of difficulty and continue to bail out their streaky jump shooters by sending them to the line. Oh yeah, and put them in the bonus with 8 minutes left in a tight game.
And please, don’t kid yourself: This is EXACTLY what would have happened in LA the night before if there were only a few extra seconds on the clock. That game unraveled before our eyes as well, but thankfully the buzzer sounded before it totally fell apart.
We weren’t quite as lucky last night. This game was lost on:
Poor shot selection. I’m convinced that the best thing that can happen to Chris Bosh is continuing to miss his jumper. There’s no player on the Blazers roster that can cover him (Aldridge isn’t there yet). GET TO THE LINE!! This is why we won the Clippers game. Would you rather have AP taking awful runners and Jose trying to splice through two defenders at top speed (dribbling the ball off his foot) down the stretch, or Bosh/Rasho in the post working them into a foul or an easy bucket?
You KNOW Pryzbilla can’t hold you down. What gives?
An aside to the above point: We need someone other than Bosh to get to the line. It’s enough already. We have the talent – Moon, Parker, Delfino, Dixon, Jose, TJ – all these guys can take it to the rack and look for the contact. The fact that they don’t is inexplicable.
Bad time management. The Raptors were down three, with 27 seconds left. Blazers miss a shot and grab the offensive rebound. We then proceed to watch the Blazers dribble the ball, running 14 precious seconds off the clock before we remember, “Hey, shouldn’t we foul here?” 14 freakin’ seconds?!? We had a shot, and we used it to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Awful substitutions. Sam, it’s time to take Darrick Martin out for dinner, thank him for his services, and give him an assistant coach’s position. Official, unofficial, doesn’t matter. Not only can he no longer help us on the court, but he’s doing a pretty good job of hindering our game. You’ve got Delfino and Dixon, both competent ball handlers to spell Jose until TJ comes back.
I could get into a whole spiel about how Sam left Martin in 6 minutes too long in the fourth, therefore not leaving Jose enough time to get into a rhythm in crunch time, and how our best player should be on the court in a two point game late in the fourth…but there’s no point. It’s not going to make a lick of difference. Sam’s as stubborn as he is stylish, as unpredictable as he is unapologetic.
Someone made a good point that playing Martin is actually hurting his credibility: Who’s going to listen to the ‘unofficial assistant coach’ when he goes out there and runs the offense like a child banging his fists against the buttons of his older brother’s X-Box controller?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have to give credit to the Blazers. Portland has a better record than Utah, Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Memphis. All this without their number one draft pick, 27 year old phenom Greg Oden. Roy’s been a stud. Last night proved he deserves a spot on the Western Conference All-Stars. We let him do whatever he wanted, and turns out he wanted to sodomize us with the bong Bill Walton left in the Blazers locker room.
Pounding the hole hard, without lube.
It’s safe to say that they’ll come back to earth and end the season below .500, but they are playing great, unselfish basketball. And it’s their poise that’s most noteworthy. A young squad with confidence and nerves like this? You know this just eats Scott Skiles alive.
GAME NOTES:
- I asked my girlfriend to bring me a pen to record my game notes. This is what she brought me.
It’s hard to write notes with a light-up Winnie the Pooh bobblehead Disney pen.
- Did you see when Derrick Martin Jr. threw the ball off his Sr. self? That’s what broke the space-time continuum and changed the face of the game.
- Moon shouldn’t start until he averages 4-6 trips to the line per game. Love the guy, but it’s starting to appear like he’s not using his skill set to make the team better, instead looking to impress the coaches/improve his individual stats. Not a good sign. Time to swap with Delfino?
- Can anyone explain this?
Somehow, Derrick Martin’s at fault.
- Hear that guy chanting MVP for Roy in the first quarter? He might be on to something.
- Out of a 4th quarter timeout, Roy takes the ball for a completely uncontested lay-in. He was literally the only PLAYER in the lane. Who’d have thought to cover the guy who’s been slicing us like Dexter all night long?
- I really can’t watch Martin shoot anymore. I’d rather go to David Koresh Fantasy Camp.
- Did I mention it took us 14 seconds to realize we had to foul down three on the last possession of the game?
The worst part? They can’t believe it either.
