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I know, I know — the Blazers got their asses handed to them Sunday night in Houston.They trailed wire to wire. But I’m going to say the same thing I’ve been saying for a month now: Portland has, 1 through 12, better players than the Rockets.
Sure, Yao Ming is better than anything Portland has at center, although not by as big a margin as it should be because Yao seems to not be totally comfortable in the spotlight. He could shoot about twice as often as he does and it wouldn’t be too much.
But you could make a case that at just about every other spot, the Blazers are better. You think Scola is better than Aldridge? You think Battier is better than Roy? You think, well, OK — yes, Artest is better than the Batum/Outlaw combination. But Artest is nowhere near the player he used to be. You could also match Roy against Artest and Battier vs. Batum/Outlaw and say the Blazers are better at both spots. I’ll give Brooks a draw with Blake at the point, but I’m comfortable Blake’s capable of more than holding his own against Brooks, at this early point of Brooks’ career.
Off the bench, it’s no contest. The Rockets have a nice group of reserves but there’s nowhere near the firepower of the Blazers.
In a seven-game series, I’ll take the most talented team every time. In playoff series, adjustments are made and all the surprises are gone. The Blazers have a little trouble defending Yao, but a game or two into a series, I believe they’d have it all figured out. Rotations become crisper. Responsibilities are well delineated.
And then it all comes down to talent. And call me a homer — nobody ever has — but I just think the Blazers, position by position, have the better roster.
And then we come to homecourt advantage. Yes, you’d love to have it. Especially if you’re playing the Lakers, Cavaliers or Celtics. But the Blazers are plenty good enough to win on somebody else’s court. Oh yeah — I know, they haven’t done it in the regular season. But again, so what? The playoffs are always different. Teams always break through on the other guy’s court. Happens every year in almost every series and it will happen in the Blazers series, no matter who this team plays. It’s just a matter of which team will blow that home game first.
The pressure is almost always on the higher-seeded team in the postseason. The visiting team has less pressure and also becomes accustomed to the other team’s arena because within two weeks, it gets two or three or even four games there. I’ve always thought home games get tougher and road games get easier in the playoffs.
My point is this: in the playoffs, talent wins out. The travel equalizes, the preparation time equalizes. It comes down, nine out of 10 times, to who has the best players. That’s one of the reasons the league shifted away from short series (it used to play best-of-three “mini-series” and then best-of-five in the first round) to seven-game series — to decrease the chance of fluky outcomes.
Against Houston, Dallas, Utah and New Orleans — the Blazers have the talent edge. And a seven-game series usually ensures talent comes out on top.
Tags: Dallas Mavericks, Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz
Dwight,
I guess I agree with you on the talent thing, but I think the end of your article was the most important. We have more talent that Houston, New Orleans, Dallas, and Utah. And if you give me a choice between those four teams, I’m taking New Orleans before I take Houston. CP is a great player, and so is West, but there’s a reason Houston has a better record than NO. Its because they are better, and should be avoided, if NO is available to be played. Of course, this will all be moot if Portland can’t move up past the fourth seed because I have a sneaking suspicion that the 1-5 are pretty set right now.
I hope you are right. The biggest concern for me is that Artest and Battier are going to lock Brandon down in a 7 game series at beat him down. If the refs let the defense play like it did last night (no I am not complaining) it will wear Brandon down in a 7 game series. Take Brandon out of the equation and the Blazers are an average team.
Man I have tried to defend Oden on several occasions, but man his fouls were stupid last night.
Yao is talented, but a big crybaby also. I especially like how he barely gets off the floor and then screams on a dunk, impressive.
Von Wafer looked like an all star last night.
The Rockets ability to switch off on defense between Artest and Battier on Roy will make that series a tough one for the Blazers. Houston plays a more physical game then the Blazers do too. If the Blazers can score more points they’ll win
I’m with you all the way on this. In a seven game series I’ll take Portland over Houston. Both our centers had terrible games last night and I think the team defensive focus and intensity disappeared again.
It seems as though that away-game focus is always the last piece of the puzzle in building a good team into a great team. Why? I think the answer has to be experience–they just have to keep doing it over and over until they get it right.
Dwight, you are out of your mind on this one. Houston has much less talent OFFENSIVELY than Portland, but the Rockets play the best defense in the NBA– Battier and Artest are 2 of the 5 best perimeter defenders in the league. Portland COULD beat Houston (and I think they would if they had homecourt, which is unlikely now) but Portland would MUCH rather play New Orleans, Dallas (ignore the season sweep, that was a fluke– Dallas isn’t that good) or Utah.
I thought you liked Hollinger’s work Dwight– he’d tell you that you need to take a look at point differential.
I made a mistake there– Houston’s D is the best in the West, but not the best in the NBA.
I can see Portland stealing 1 game in Houston, but I can’t see Portland winning all three in Portland. Houston is too good to think that they can’t steal a game on our home court as well. That means we may have to win 2 games in Houston to win the series. Can’t see that happening.
The reason I dont want us to play Houston is they are more physical. I don’t want to play teams that are more physical than us (Houston, LA, Denver, maybe SA).
Give me Dallas, Utah or NO.
Oh my Goodness… A sane voice as the playoffs approach. I didn’t think I could find one in the greater Portland area. Great job Dwight… and I love the line about being a homer. I actually laughed out loud in my office and made everyone’s head turn. You made my Monday.
I don’t think it really matters who the blazers play in the playoffs at this point. I think they have a chance to sneak a road game against any of those teams. Yao is prone to fouls so if the blazers can make him work on D, they can take him out of the game. While Artest has some terrific attributes he’s also prone to self-destruct. The guy seems to think that he’s “the man” and he makes things tough on his team because he takes some terrible shots. I watch the Rockets a lot on NBA league pass and I’ve seen that guy single-handedly lose games for his team. Frankly, I love seeing him with the ball in his hands because there’s a high likelihood that he’ll make a bad decision. Houston may beat our Blazers if they play but the Rockets have no chance against LA in the second round because Artest will shoot himself in the foot. Portland missed a lot of freethrows and open shots last night and they still were within 4 pts in the 4th qtr. They missed three dunks to!! Between missed dunks and missed foul shots, Portland lost the game. It’s not like they got their asses kicked. An adjustment or two will give the blazers a good chance to beat the Rockets in the playoffs IMO.
I don’t really agree that we match up at every position. I love our big guys – but they don’t score. Also – we have a bunch of 3-ball chuckers coming off the bench. (Travis has gotten much better.) Nate tries to create consistency in the game by leaving LMA in with the bench, but is doesn’t seem to be working as of late against good teams. I also think we are wasting Rudy’s talent by exclusively using him as a three point shooter.
As a matter of fact, I would rather see any OTHER team than Houston in the first round. We were an unlikely three from getting swept by them this year.
Dwight,
Play-off refereeing is different so I think that the aggressiveness allowed will help Joel and Greg neutralize Yao and the stats show when he doesn’t score over 20 points Huston’s record is very poor. The pressure to finally win a play-off series is growing and starting in Houston might be a good thing, steal a game and then come home to the RG. Rockets down 3-1 pressure builds even more. Sorry Rick I saw many players not listening to you during the game and that just doesn’t turn out well in the play-offs.
I think it would be good for Greg to play against Yao at least four more times this season. I think he would learn from it. I am not sure there is another team that we could play that he would win as much from?
We are likely to lose in the first round. I would love to get carried away and think we can make it to the 2nd round – but that probably isn’t going to happen.
What we need is a series that we will learn from and help us achieve our ultimate goal of an NBA championship. Having Greg get some quality experience with Yao is probably a good thing. Do we get that if we go up against NO, Utah or Denver?
We will lose in the playoffs against Houston. We may have more talent but they are tougher than us. It’s that simple. Also when Roy is being locked down and not allowed to penetrate…we are an average, jump shooting team. Roy has struggled in every game against Houston this year. Even the one where he hit the last second shot.
And Jacob…when a team beats us 3 times…twice on our home floor… That’s not a fluke buddy. We want nothing to do with Dallas.
Need to hope we get NO, Utah, Denver, and now that Ginobli is out…SA.
3 games is way too small a sample size to judge anything. I’m constantly amazed that people don’t realize this.
You have an entire season which says we’re way better than Dallas, and you have 3 games (all close) which say they are better. Which are you going to believe?
Not with you on this one Dwight. If talent wins out 9 out of 10 times, how has San Antonio won all those titles and how did the Portland teams in the late 1990s never win a single one?
Those Portland teams were vastly superior in talent to any Spurs team that won the championship. Heck even now no one outside of Duncan, Parker and Ginobili from the Spurs would sniff playing time for the Blazers, while Portland has about 6-7 guys that would start right now for San Antonio. Even with that, the Spurs would take Portland in a 7 game series.
I see your point that talent wins out most of the time, but I would go the other way when making that assumption in the playoffs. Talent is more important in the regular season but toughness, chemistry, and good coaching is what really stands out in the playoffs. It’s what has won the Spurs all their championships and it’s how Boston got it done last year. Again, the Lakers were the more talented team but Boston was tougher better prepared.
“In a seven-game series, I’ll take the most talented team every time.”
Dwight, that made me miss Katie and Margaret on the copy desk. Great women.
I’ve seen Houston manhandle the Blazers twice at home, and just barely lose here, but so what? If we go in with the idea that we can’t take these guys, it’s the wrong mindset. I give props to Yao for becoming so much more physical than when he entered the NBA. I don’t see Brooks in Blake’s league right now. Remember, Blake won the NCAA’s and he was crucial to that Maryland team. He’s a big-time player.
It would be a grind but if we prevailed, we’d be really primed to battle in Round 2.
I don’t want to get carried away but if this team finds a playoff gear, they could go to the Western Conference Finals. I think Brandon is ready to romp again like back during the 50-point game. Add the progress elsewhere and good things could happen. Great teams always happen sooner than everyone thinks so is this a great team? We’ll see.
BTW, I just heard Manute is gone from the Spurs for the year.
“But you could make a case that at just about every other spot, the Blazers are better.”
Hopefully the NBA goes to that experimental one-on-one format.
Based on efficiency differential, here’s the list of which teams I’d like play the Trail Blazers in the first round of the playoffs. The numbers in parenthesis are efficiency differentials for games played till date (Porltand currently owns a 5.0 efficiency differential).
1. Dallas Mavericks (1.7). I know that Dallas has killed Portland and people speculate that the Mavericks are a bad match-up for the Blazers, I tend to agree with Dwight here that the more talented team will win a longer series and Portland is ahead by a mile in talent vs. this Dallas team.
2. New Orleans Hornets (2.2). We have more talent at every position other than point guard.
3. Utah Jazz (3.4). Recent wins prove the point that we are better.
4. San Antonio Spurs (3.8). Without Ginobili, the Spurs are a good team, not a great one.
5. Denver Nuggets (3.9). Yes, they have played us better than most teams, but during the playoffs, the intensity and focus changes and the Blazers will absolutely win against them if they own home court.
6. Houston Rockets (4.0). Same as the Nuggets, the Blazers will win a series against Houston if Portland owns home court.
7. Los Angeles Lakers (7.6). As opposed to what many people are claiming for as an exciting first round match-up, our odds of winning a first-round series against the Lakers are very low.
I completely agree with mmm.
Are you serious. I am a die hard Texas Longhorn fan and I have watched and followed Lemarcus’ entire career and I will be the first to tell you at this point in time he cant even compare to Scola on a talent level. Name one defender that even comes close to Shane Battier or Ron Artest. Home court advantage was erased in the first game, so that whole “efficiency differential” seems to have gone out the window. Good try though. Yall will be lucky to see YOUR Trail Blazers in Portland again this season. I’m pretty sure your oh so TALENTED BOYS will be sent packing in game 5 by some TALENTED GROWN MEN!