Gameday Preview vs. Portland Trail Blazers
by David A. Arnott on Nov 14, 2009 1:16 PM EST
17 comments
Pump Up Music: Jimmy Eat World -- "Bleed American"
The Big Picture: Depending how you view Brandon Roy, the Portland Trail Blazers are either a traditional NBA title contender, or they're a dark horse contender with talent up and down the roster, but no singular superstar spearheading everything. I happen to be in the Brandon Roy Is A Superstar camp. Portland fans are lucky to be watching a Hall of Fame caliber guard leading them (not saying he's going to the HoF, just that he's producing at that level now), and that's one of the prerequisites of a championship team.
The best part for them, though, is that the rest of the team is pretty stacked, too. LaMarcus Aldridge is a borderline All Star who's picked up his rebounding this year. Steve Blake and Andre Miller have a really high floor at PG; between the two of them, it's nearly guaranteed they won't get a stinker from the position in a given game. Of course, there's Greg Oden, who may not be the Evolutionary Russell like some breathless folks thought back when he was drafted, but at the absolute least, he's every bit Kevin Love's equal, only without nearly as many questions about his defensive capabilities.
Last night, the Blazers ground out a win over the Hornets, who were without Chris Paul for the fourth quarter after an ankle injury. Brandon Roy logged the most minutes, with 38, and all twelve guys played. In other words, they're reasonably rested for the seconf half of a back to back. Look for the same kind of minutes distribution again, with the Blazers going ten deep. Blake and Miller should start together, and Joel Przybilla, Travis Outlaw, Martell Webster, Jerryd Bayless, and Rudy Fernandez could all get at least ten minutes each.
Key to Victory: I'm most concerned about the Aldridge-Boris Diaw matchup. If Gerald Wallace ends up on Roy for much of the game, that's awesome for us, and if it's Raja Bell, then so be it, because he's probably still a better option than Flip, and if Felton's guarding Roy, that means D.J. Augustin is in the game. While he should get every opportunity to play his way out of his slump, D.J.'s been a horror show the past few times out. But I don't think we have any kind of answer for Aldridge other than Diaw stepping up his game. Crash might be able to contain him a bit, but that would require putting Diaw on even more perimeter-oriented players, and that's no good. Physically, Freedom Fries is probably best suited to dealing with Aldridge, but that's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside the box thinking at this point. Might Larry Brown follow up on his idea to play Tyson Chandler at the four sometime this season and go with Muhammad for stretches?
Detail That Might Interest .08% of You Should Interest 100% of You: Blazersedge, the SB Nation Trail Blazers blog, holds a Blazersedge Night every year, in which readers donate Blazers tickets to kids who wouldn't otherwise get to go. Please consider it yourself. One of the best Christmas gifts I've ever received was when the then-Official Girlfriend of Rufus on Fire bought a few of those tickets in my name.
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We're doomed
Ever since this season started I’ve been the voice of optimism and before each game outlined the reasons why I think the Cats can win it. I’ve eaten a lot of diss pie for it – especially of late – and the Cats have wound up losing most of the time by showing flashes of being a good team and then turning colder than yellow snow for long stretches of each game.
I’ve probed team and stat reports for weaknesses we can exploit in our opponents. I’ve read the blogosphere of every team we played against for additional information. We still get our butts handed to us.
I’ve posted endlessly about the teams potential and been served up big piles of turdburgers from people here who have decided that since we aren’t 8-0 at this point that the entire season is over. Not only that, the next THREE seasons are over as well.
I figure it’s time to take a different approach.
Tonight we welcome Portland on the back end of a road back-to-back. They are better rested than they’ve ever been before and their game plan doesn’t exist. Everyone knows they can crush us with their ball boys, laundry crew, and in a pinch they can use their bus driver for their sixth man. They plan to let us stay close during the warm-ups, but will have built up an insurmountable elevendy-three point lead during the starting lineup announcements. The only bright light for the Charlotte Bobcats will be that Tyson Chandler is going to have a triple-double and go 11-12 with 17 at the freethrow line. His only miss will be when Gerald Henderson collapses in front of him from exhaustion and causes him to trip.
I’m actually going to be at the game tonight and I figure by the time I finish my first hotdog I’ll be on a first-name basis with the 9 other fans that will show up. They’ll laugh at me because of the 10 of us, I’ll be the only one not wearing Portland colors. They’ll all want to take my picture because the sight of a Bobcats fan in their natural environment is as rare these days as Free Prescription Refill days at Walgreen’s – which will be announced at game time as the new Official Provider of Discount Halloween Candy for the Charlotte Bobcats.
All kidding aside, I will indeed be at the game tonight – section 107. I’ll be the cheering idiot in the wheelchair. It’s my first game at the Cable Box (dealing with the injuries to my back have kept me away until now) and I’m stoked because win or lose I AM a Bobcats fan. Do I think we can beat the Blazers? On paper they should tear us apart. But the score will start, as always, at 0-0 and these are just the sort of games where the Bobcats have surprised the hell out of us in the past. Tonight I won’t really care. I’m going to a pro game again for the first time since I lost the ability to run on a court or a field and I’ll be the happiest man in the room.
by Ourdaywillcome on Nov 14, 2009 1:49 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Huh?
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Nov 15, 2009 10:37 PM EST up reply actions
As a Portland fan, I hope Portland wins, but
this game smells like a trap to me. Portland is nearing the end of the road trip and may be overlooking Charlotte to think about payback against Atlanta on Monday.
If the jumpers don’t fall and you can keep Portland out of the paint, they’re beatable. Raja Bell usually guards Roy well and Chandler may be able to slow Oden down. I don’t know about Diaw on Aldridge. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Larry Brown is a pretty good coach.
"since we aren’t 8-0 at this point that the entire season is over"
Who said that?
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Nov 15, 2009 10:36 PM EST up reply actions
Excellent post but...
You forgot that Portland has a hard time winning in Charlotte. I think the game will be closer than you expect and Portland will be very fortunate to pull it out. Suffice to say that Gerald Wallace plays like KG against us.
From the Blazer Blogs
As you can see from the brief comments that are already showing up, the main BlazerBlog have linked Rufus on Fire from their gameday preview. Even though I had some fun with my earlier post, I did indeed spend my usual time in the blogosphere this morning and am giving my usual report.
Blazer fans are treating our Cats better than we do. Class acts with class teams to cheer for don’t ever take anything for granted and Blazer fans are displaying a little concern about tonight’s festivities. For an excellent article on the state of our Bobcats head on over to:
The long and short of things is simply this:
If the Cats show up tonight and actually play their game – stingy defense, strong rebounding – they will be able to stay in the thick of things. We’ll have to keep the turnover ratio tight and hold the rock better than we have in recent games.
We need an over the top night from Crash and it would really help if Chandler can manage to swish the ball more often than he manages to slap the Blazers. Rumors that Portland took a self-defense class this morning in anticipation of facing Chandler cannot be verified. Also, if DJ was looking to pick a night to break out of his slump off the bench, I heartily suggest this would me a mighty good’un.
If the Blazers have any chink in their armor (apart from road-weariness which could definitely be a factor in the 2nd half) it’s that they are a bit slow on rotation. If we keep the ball in motion without losing control, we should be able to establish a half-court game that will pay dividends on the weak side of the defense.
This is one of those games that really tests the mettle of a team. We’re on a slight losing streak that is on the cusp of tightening its grip and becoming tenacious. The team embarrassed itself last time out and the coach was livid. We have had a bit of a rest but we’re about to head out on the road for a week and that hasn’t been the kindest place to be. A week from now we’ll either be licking our wounds after the Bucks deepened our nightmare or we’ll be looking forward to our continued newfound success. It’s unlikely it will be anything in-between. A lot of the Bobcat players attitude for the next week will be defined by what happens tonight.
Here’s the thing; we aren’t expected to win this game. This is one we’re supposed to lose and look bad while doing it. Since that’s the case, I’m hoping the boys take the court tonight and just decide to knuckle down and raise some hell. We know they can do it and they need to remind themselves that they have that capacity. What’s the worst that can happen? We wind up with a quarter where we score a dozen or less? Been there. We turn the ball over in the neighborhood 2 dozen times? Done that. We wind up with the rest of the league laughing at our ineptitude? Well, win or lose, tonight I’ll get the shirt.
I forgot to mention it above,
but last night’s Blazers-Hornets “game” proved Portland can ugly it up with the best of them. If Charlotte can keep the tempo down, then they’ve got a pretty good chance.
best of luck tonight
Blazer fan here chiming in. Not sure why the gloom and doom from Bobcat’s fans. I’m not taking them for granted. The ’cats have some really good players and as mentioned above, Wallace can light it up. The PTB maybe on a streak, but that means little on a back-to-back road trip.
I’m interested in DJ Augustin. What kind of future do you all think he has? Would like to know your thoughts.
Dogs have Owners, Cats have Staff.
Our DJ has been missing the beat
At the start of the season I felt DJ would wind up the year with a shot at the team MVP. Sadly though, he’s gotten into his first real professional slump and has really looked lost in the past several games in particular. Eventually he’s going to find his game again.
When the Hornets were in Charlotte we had one of the best 6th men in Del Curry. DJ reminds me of him in many ways. When he’s on his game, he always finds a way to be open on the perimeter. He can come of the bench hot and start serving laser beam passes to the cutters. He doesn’t have Del’s smooth stroke, and he isn’t quite as quick on his release, but I do see him carving out a career as a steady staple of a good team. I don’t think he’s going to be anything legendary, but he’ll manage to carve out a nice little career for himself and have more than a few memorable nights while doing it. He’s still a couple of years from his peak potential, and a lot will depend on how disciplined he is during the next off-season or two. At present (since Coach Brown isn’t known for using his rookies a whole lot) DJ is our best young hope. Consistency may well be his biggest question mark. He is going to have to prove to Coach Brown and the rest of the conference that his current level of play is an exception and won’t be the rule.
On the plus side – he does show glimmers of leadership and more than once he’s stepped off the bench and taken control of the flow of a game. More than one person here has noted that DJ is usually on the court with our reserves and because of it we don’t often see what it would be like to have him build minutes with the top quality athletes on the team working with him. He’s also open-minded enough that he still tries to adapt to the system instead of stubbornly clinging to old habits. He certainly has an excellent opportunity to learn the pro game with a Hall of Fame coach in Larry Brown taking a specific interest in him. We also still have Dell Curry in town doing our tv commentary and I’m sure DJ can pick up some valuable pointers from him about game prep and how to come into a game cold and quickly make an impact.
Augustin’s biggest problem right now seems to be frustration. Like any pro, he’s frustrated that his team isn’t performing, but he’s also looking frustrated at his own inability to get his rhythm back. His face is definitely showing signs of stress each time his shot leaves his hand feeling perfect and winds up catching iron instead of net. This has him trying to force passes that aren’t there instead of taking an open shot, as opposed to Raymond Felton who feels compelled to force up shots that aren’t there instead of making the open pass. Between the two of them it looks like we have one well-rounded guard. That’s what’s making our backcourt so erratic thus far.
by Ourdaywillcome on Nov 14, 2009 4:22 PM EST up reply actions
interesting
sounds like a guy who’s been hard to gauge talent wise. Maybe he’s the Blazer’s version of Bayless. Something good there but what’s it gonna take to make it show game in game out.
Dogs have Owners, Cats have Staff.
I'd take Augustin over Bayless in a heartbeat.
He’s legit, but needs some minutes to work out the kinks. Minutes for youngsters are hard to come by when you’re ballin’ for Brown though.
by torsoheap on Nov 14, 2009 4:51 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
It's doom and gloom because this is a piss-poor organization.
As for Augustin, it’s hard to judge him as much more than a scorer, because that’s the only role he’d been asked to serve, as our 6th-best offensive player (him) is light years ahead of our 7th. In that role, he’s usually a solid outside shooter, and gets to the basket better than you’d think for a guy his size. He’s shown flashes of being able to make plays for his teammates in the rare opportunity he’s gotten to actually, you know, play point with the first unit, but the front office and coaching staff have such a mancrush on Felton it’s hard for him to get the chances he should to grow and develop his skills.
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Nov 15, 2009 10:49 PM EST up reply actions
yeah- blazers look out of sync or something...
this is a dangerous game that i anticipate the blazers will lose. dj has good potential.
.500 by end of November?
We play the Blazers, the Magic, the 76ers, the Bucks, the Pacers, the Raptors, the Cavs, and the Wizards before November is over. Out of those, I think if we beat the teams we should (Bucks, Pacers), and get victories over those that I, personally, believe we should (76ers, Raptors, Wizards), we could be at .500 by the end of november. Give or take a couple W/L, I think we could potentially be in a better place than we are right now (not hard) come December.
Your optimist,
L’O
Definitely possible
I think, of the 5 games you pinpointed as wins, Toronto will be the toughest. But i expect the ’Cats to win tonight against Portland, so 8-8 seems very doable – especially if the Bobcats get on a roll and turn a good game or two into a winning streak. Before the season started i predicted a 10-6 start. Looking at the schedule that seems unlikely, but if they had won that Chicago game that got away then a 6-2 run would have done it.
I am pretty sick of the doom and gloom amongst Bobcats fans. The season is very early, the Cats are playing relatively poorly, key players have been out and/or missed preseason time and are still getting into shape, yet they are still 3-5.
People seem to forget just how long the NBA season is.
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