Got totally blacked out on this one. No Internet feeds available, that I could find. Whoever is trying to stamp out this piracy stuff was on the job today. You’d think that a guy who stars (yeah, right) on his own Comcast Sportsnet show could get them to run a cable out to his house, wouldn’t you?

Nope, been here 13 years now and still no cable.

So I can’t really tell you much, other than — were you truly surprised by the outcome? Until the Trail Blazers start playing consistent defense, this stuff will keep happening. Allowing plus-50 percent shooting just isn’t going to get it done.

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Man, game after game it’s the same old thing. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of great Blazer fans (and great people, in general, of course) at The Agency last night for Blazers Edge night — and congrats to those guys, it was a wonderful event.

Anyway, last night I remember saying to Brian Hendrickson in the first quarter — “Same old story. Get behind early. Stay about the same number of points behind for a while. Second-half comeback gets you close, but then fall back. It’s the same game, all over again.”

Basketball’s version of “Ground Hog Day.” And I felt worse about it Thursday because of that great crowd gathered together at The Agency — what a night it would have been for them if the game had just been close. Didn’t have to be a win — just a close game.

Why is this happening with such consistency? Well, you can cut them some slack and say that youth has something to do with that. But if you keep using that as an excuse, I’m going to have to ask about the benefits of youth — where is the enthusiasm and energy of youth? I sure didn’t see it last night. Yes, back-to-back games. But this was a BIG GAME.

I think it comes back to defense. One team played it and the other didn’t. Parts of last night’s game — and this happens in many road games — were a Denver dunk fest. It astounds me how much penetration to the basket the Blazers allow, particularly on the road, while at the same time surrendering so many open outside shots. How is that possible?

When you’re not a good defensive team to begin with, being on the road amplifies the problem. Yes, this is a broken record — but so are all these road losses: Portland has to get better on defense. As a team.

A few little sidebars:

– You should have heard all the cheers at The Agency last night when Jerryd Bayless entered the game. Fans love him and I guess they hoped he’d attack the basket and play defense. He did neither one — this game was way over his head. For all his potential, he’s still not understanding NBA defense. He wants to hand check and bump outside. They don’t let you do that in the NBA these days. And when Bayless has the ball, they’re dropping off him just daring him to shoot a jump shot. I believe I’m the last person in town to believe Sergio still should be playing ahead of Bayless.

– Brandon Roy did not set any kind of tone early in this game, which I think he must do in road games. He sits back, Kobe-like, trying to get his teammates involved. But his airball, his miss of a free throw — those things hurt early in that game and he seemed slow to get into the mix.

– LaMarcus Aldridge: He makes four in a row and you think you can ride him. Then he misses five in a row. That’s kind of his season — not quite as consistent as you’d like.

– The Nuggets had 52 points in the paint and not many fast-break points. And this isn’t a team with a dominant post player who is going to take you down low and brutalize you. Those paint points came off penetrations and offensive rebounds.

– Nobody seemed to have a clue how they wanted to go about defending Carmelo Anthony. He’s a terrific all-around offensive player but it might be better to get up on him and make him a driver than to sag off and allow open shots. Or maybe not.

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Atlanta will provide a pretty good test tonight, assuming the back-to-back thing isn’t a problem for the Hawks. And, really, it’s time the Trail Blazers began turning up the dial a little bit.

Portland hasn’t played well in more than a month. The defensive shortcomings are becoming more apparent and there hasn’t been much in the way of improvement in the way the Blazers defend. Come on — nobody expects them to turn into a defensive juggernaut overnight. But it’s not unfair to expect them to get better — isn’t that what young teams are supposed to do?

The Blazers embark on the final stretch of the season with some very difficult games ahead. There can’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind that this is a playoff team. Forget all that talk about their age, they belong as one of the top eight teams in the West. But it’s time they started sharpening up.

What you’d want to see down the stretch: No more uncontested shots. Tightening up against the dribble penetration into the lane. Better transition defense. Better coordination with team defense. More minutes on the floor for Greg Oden. More contributions — on the boards, defense and offense — from the small forwards. More fast-break baskets.

Is this too much to ask? I don’t think so. Portland, knowing it had a tough early-season schedule, came out of the gate quickly this season. But other teams have had time to scout, assess and adjust to what the Blazers do well and not so well. I think it’s appropriate now to expect Portland to do the same thing.

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This is a response by me, lifted from the comments section of the previous post:

By the way, it’s so lame to blame their defensive shortcomings on them being “young.” They have talent — tons of it. It’s why they’re winning games. Do you think, switching pick and rolls like this, they’re going to be better on defense three years from now? No way. Not in the NBA. Maybe in high school you can do that, but not in the NBA. It’s a system problem, not a player problem. That’s not to say they have a bunch of great defensive players, but in this league, who does? Nobody. That’s why you need a system, a coordinated plan of how your team is going to defend, in order to succeed. I don’t see that here.

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Yes, there are a lot of wins out there. The schedule is set up for a second-half run. But a few days ago, I asked people to tell me the difference between Portland and Cleveland after a game in the Rose Garden. Most everyone had the same answer: Lebron James.

I watched that game and yes, James is a tough player to overcome. But do I think the Blazers, overall, have more talent than the Cavaliers? Yes, on that night with West and Ilgauskas out, they certainly did.

The difference between Portland and Cleveland — and the difference between Portland and the other top teams — isn’t so much talent on the roster but the way the teams defend. And the Blazers have had problems on defense since the opening game of the season.

And forget about points allowed when judging this — how many points you allow is merely a product of the pace you play. Portland slows the game down and thus doesn’t allow as many points as other teams who run more. The key statistic when it comes to defense has always been field-goal percentage against. How well do teams shoot against you?

In this statistic the Blazers show themselves to be the worst defensive team among those good teams probably headed for the playoffs — and it isn’t really close.

The best teams at holding down opposing shooters? Just the teams you might expect — Boston (42.2 percent), Cleveland (42.4 percent), Orlando (42.8 percent). The Lakers are a couple of more spots down at 44.7 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, there only eight teams worse than the Blazers — and listen to this ragtag collection: Memphis, Sacramento, New York, Washington, Oklahoma City, Minnesota, New Jersey, Golden State. You want to be lumped in with those teams in any category? The Clippers are significantly better than Portland, for heaven’s sake.

Portland’s field-goal percentage against is 46.5 percent. When teams are shooting that well against you, you’re pretty fortunate to be able to call yourself a playoff team.

And that, more than anything else, is where the challenge is during the second half of the season. The Blazers must start defending with more intelligence and greater intensity than they have so far. That’s what’s keeping them out of the status of elite teams.

 A LATE ADD TO THIS POST: Last season the Blazers held opponents to 45.1 percent shooting. Not great, but certainly better than this season. Young teams are supposed to get better, aren’t they?

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I think it’s a little too early for any major “What’s wrong with the Blazers” kind of post. Hey, it’s only four games and the competition has been rough. Suffice it to say the things I said yesterday about the Jazz held true to form — they were a little too physical for the Trail Blazers last night, they got into the paint, they executed down the stretch. Utah was Utah.

And Portland was allowing 52 percent field-goal shooting. Again. Obviously, you can’t expect to win all that often when every team you play shoots more than 50 percent from the floor. It comes down to keeping teams out of the paint, which isn’t happening.

Patience. There’s no reason the defense can’t get better through hard work and better attention to detail.

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It’s way too early to panic. Three games are just three games. And when it comes to statistics, we’re dealing with what the experts call a small sample size. You know, if you start the baseball season by getting hits in five of your first 10 at-bats, it doesn’t mean you’re going to hit .500 for the season.

But on the other hand, I think it merits mention that after three games, the Trail Blazers are the worst defensive team in the NBA, based on the field-goal percentage that opponents have compiled against them.

Teams are shooting a combined 52.3 percent from the field against the Blazers over three games. And worse yet, Portland is allowing opponents to shoot 51.2 percent from three-point range — when the next-worst team in the league is allowing 44.3 percent three-point shooting.

Portland’s allowing teams to get inside for easy shots and because it’s belatedly trying to help out inside, the three-point shooters have been wide open. It’s a lethal combination. Point guards are penetrating into the heart of the defense with ease and post players are getting to the rim. I think the changes in the starting lineup — with Oden and Webster not playing — are affecting the team defense. Man, I’ll say this right now: You don’t realize how valuable Webster is to this team until he’s out. He’s much more reliable at both ends of the floor than Outlaw, who is so up and down. It’s why I think the team would still be better off with Nicolas Batum starting in Webster’s absence.

Now I have no doubt a lot of this is just kind of fluky. Portland’s played three quality teams and sometimes things like shooting percentage take several games to find their statistical norm. But I don’t like the trend. I also don’t like the fast-break situation. In three games, the Blazers have had 4, 14 and 5 fast-break points. That’s just not going to get it done. I think there is such an emphasis here with keeping turnovers down (which is being done) that the temptation to get into the open court and run is very easy to resist.

Teams improve in many areas throughout the season. For the Blazers, that improvement must start on the defensive end. I’m not sure Oden’s return will influence it a great deal, either. He’s not yet shown he’s ready to be a big intimidator. It’s going to have to be a team improvement — with help defense cutting down the penetration and swifter double-teams coming on the post.

That improvement is going to be necessary right away, too. Next up is Utah, a team that traditionally is one of the best in basketball at getting the ball inside.

It sounds so simplistic but I don’t hear many people talking about it: On most nights, the team that gets the best shots wins. That means on defense keeping teams outside and contesting every single shot — and on offense, getting dunks or uncontested layups to go with wide-open three-point shots. If you do all that, you’ll do OK on the boards, too, because you’ll always be in good position to rebound.

(An aside: I have a friend whose ex-wife didn’t know anything about sports, even though her husband was deeply involved in them. So he would teach her one phrase, a truism, that she should always use whenever someone asked her about a particular sport. For basketball, it was, “You’ve just got to get the ball in deep to the big guy.” She’d say that, and nothing more. People would always nod their head and figure, this woman knows her basketball.)

If you don’t have “the big guy” you slash to the basket, you fast break, you do what you can to get the ball to the basket. Keep a shot chart some night, just put an X down where each team takes a shot. Circle the X when the shot is made. The team with its Xs closest to the basket will almost always have the most circles, get the most free throws and . . .  win the game.

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