Now maybe I don’t totally understand the rule, but from what I saw last night, I cannot believe this is what the NBA really wants. Seriously, every rule has to be explored to make sure it can’t be exploited past what makes sense.

If you can actually do what the Golden State Warriors did last night, it has a chance to change basketball as we know it. The Warriors were able to use Devean George after he had acquired six fouls — and paid such a small price for it, a technical foul.

Think about it. LeBron James or Kobe Bryant fouls out — hey, I’m not going to go along with that if I’m coaching that. I’m going to take a technical foul and — hell, the other team could miss the free throw and it would cost my team NOTHING — and put him right back on the floor.

Yes, I realize you have to have used all your other bench players. Fine, put them on the floor, have one of them foul and then get them out of there. No harm in that.

Man, they ought to have to do what colleges do — if you run out of able-bodied players you play with four. Or three. And that ought to teach you that in a league where the mandate is to dress eight players, you better make sure all eight are able to play. If they aren’t, you deserve that fate.

Tweet This Post

Yes, I know — nine straight Portland losses in Oakland.

But if the Trail Blazers lose this one, I don’t want to hear a word about injuries or any other alibis. This game must be won against an obviously inferior opponent that’s also had its share of injuries. The Blazers should blow them away. Talent level? Not even close.

Look, there are important, tough-to-win games ahead. There is no margin for losing games like this one. And I really can’t imagine it happening, actually.

If Portland doesn’t win this game, folks, the spit is going to hit the fan. That’s all I’m going to say about it. This game is too important to mess around with. And a loss here, I’m afraid, indicates problems deeper than some injuries.

Doesn’t it?

Tweet This Post

Oh, it gets real different now. Way different.

The Portland Trail Blazers without Joel Przybilla are going to have rebounding problems, second-chance points problems and some serious defensive problems.

But if approached correctly, I still believe the Trail Blazers have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs. But they have to modify how they play at the defensive end.

Przybilla, and Oden before him, were intimidating forces on the inside. It was the backbone of the Portland defense. I would expect teams now to attack the Blazer basket relentlessly, without that big shotblocker inside.

For Portland to survive this, there has to be a change in the style of defense. I think the Blazers have the talent to play small ball, though. Throw all those guards out there with LaMarcus Aldridge and see what happens. And really, Przybilla won’t be missed on offense. He didn’t offer much other than a stiff pick-and-roll once in a while.

The big question, though, is whether Nate McMillan is willing and able to convert his style over to a faster-paced, uptempo, small-ball game. Certainly, we haven’t seen that sort of flexibility out of him.

I’d advocate telling the players at this point to have some fun — run it up and down, pressure the ball, double-team and help each other. Uptempo the game to try to take other teams’ big people out of the game. Spread the floor and attack the basket — then kick to open three-point shooters.

My goodness, Golden State — not nearly as talented as Portland — has hammered the Trail Blazers with that style of play enough over the last few years and so it should be no mystery how it can be done. It would provide a fun element to the second half of the season for the players and the fans — and really, everyone could use a little fun at this point, after all the injury sadness.

Can it happen? Yes, it could. Will it happen? Hmm. It would require a real sea change here and I’m not sure Nate McMillan is ready or willing to make that happen.

Tweet This Post

And it wasn’t that close. It was a 20-point ass-whipping from a team in turmoil. Outplayed by a bunch of tiny tots. Outhustled by a group of malcontents. Outcoached by a lazy guy hanging around just to collect a paycheck.

The worst game in a long, long while.

Just a few, A FEW of the ridiculous things that happened:

– Once more, two fouls and you’re out of the game for the whole first half. Even if you’ve got it going (Greg Oden) and they can’t stop you and they have no one near you in size. Even if you don’t have it going (LaMarcus Aldridge) but should be given a chance to get it going. May have been the turning point of the game. A little flexibility here, coach, please.

– Brandon Roy brought out the pouty face tonight and played that way all night. Didn’t get every call so just kind of drooped all evening. Ugh.

– Aldridge — how about playing BIG just one night. You’re a power forward, remember? And you’ve got a 6-6 guy guarding you. Get him into the post and punish him like you’re supposed to.

– Steve Blake plays almost 37 minutes. Why? WHY???

– Last time I checked, fast break points were 36-5. Don’t know what it ended up. Don’t even want to know. What a complete joke.

– You thought everything was fine on this team, didn’t you? Yeah, good record. But when you’re not playing well, you can win some games. And you can also look like these guys did. Awful and completely lost.

– No discipline in the way they played. Is this a trend?

– This is probably the first game all season where the three-guard lineup should have helped. But guess again.

– Really, let’s move on. The NBA was kind enough to send Minnesota into the Rose Garden tonight. By about 9 o’clock everyone will think everything is straightened out.

Tweet This Post

Portland needs to get past Oklahoma City and then see what happens with San Antonio at Golden State, in a game that should end about 30 minutes after the Blazer-Thunder contest. If the Blazers win and the Spurs lose — and you just never know how the Warriors will play, even at home — Portland can relax Wednesday night against Denver in a game that could end up being relatively meaningless for both teams.

The big thing in the first round is getting matched up against the Spurs — even if you don’t have the home court. San Antonio needed a miserably bad call last night at Sacramento to beat the Kings, when a game-winning three-pointer by Michael Finley came after the shot clock expired but was counted, anyway. The Spurs deserved to lose that game.

Gregg Popovich knew he couldn’t play Tim Duncan in back-to-back games and chose to keep him out of the one at Sacramento. He came out of there with a win, a genius move as it turned out, and the Spurs should have Duncan on the floor tonight.

San Antonio just isn’t healthy enough to survive a first-round series against anybody and is staggering toward season’s end. But the Spurs finish the year with a home game against New Orleans, which will probably be locked into its playoff slot and not care about that game. The best chance of a Spurs’ defeat is probably tonight’s game.

If San Antonio can somehow win out, the Blazers must win out — and that starts with tonight’s game against the Thunder.

Tweet This Post

Another game that could have been a win. The Warriors are obviously a difficult team to play but when you catch them on a night when they shoot only .408 from the field, you ought to beat them.

Some random observations:

• When I first started covering the NBA in the early 1980s one of the most refreshing things about the league was that the referees didn’t fall for all that flopping nonsense that was all the rage in college basketball at the time. I loved it and it made for a much better game. Players knew they wouldn’t get the call, so they didn’t bother with the theatrics. If a guy went on his back, it usually meant he was steamrolled. But my, how times have changed. The Warriors were a complete joke with the pratfalls and the referees fell for it, shall we say. Time after time.
• In regard to that, I know this sounds stupid, but I’ve always believed it: When you’re a big team playing a small team and you see a trio of miniature referees walk out to call the game, you’re in trouble. They’ve grown up being pushed around on basketball courts by bigger guys and they can’t wait to punish your big men. That’s a little of what happened last night.
• The Blazers still had a decent chance to steal the game last night but Rudy Fernandez commited two perplexing fouls that looked intentional inside the final minute. Don’t know what the Blazer announcers said about it because I was watching the GS feed. Those guys, who do a heck of a job by the way, speculated that Rudy didn’t know it was a penalty situation on the second foul in the last two minutes. If that’s the case, somebody sure didn’t pay a lot of attention in the first half of the season.
• The Warriors are the youngest team in the NBA – you probably knew that – but sure looked crafty in forcing 23 turnovers and getting 43 free throws.
• Golden State does a great job of exposing all of Portland’s weaknesses. The Blazers didn’t get a fast-break basket until about five minutes left in the game, when Sergio just went coast-to-coast with the ball. The Warriors take the ball to the basket, getting layups or forcing fouls. They baited Portland into taking open shots from distance while tricking them into ignoring their huge height advantage inside.
• Man, this is a tough team for big guys to play against — the Warriors force your big men to defend people on the perimeter. Consequently, you should either, in return, force their little guys to defend you inside or just go small and match them. Oden, Przybilla and Aldridge were all effective when they got the ball, but they didn’t get it enough.
• One thing needs to be said, though. A big guy playing against a big guy can bump and jostle the guy out of position. When you’re a big man playing against a much smaller player, the officials are simply not going to let you do that. Even though a lot of those fouls were flops, the Blazer bigs need to learn to go around or over those defenders, not try to displace them. By now, Aldridge should have figured out Maggette — it’s the same thing every time they play: Aldridge touches Maggette and Maggette falls down.
• I did not enjoy this game much. Neither team played well and the crowd seemed dead. You kept waiting for a Portland comeback and it didn’t kick in until too late. The game was there for the Blazers but there just didn’t seem to be much energy.
• Flops. I’m sick of the stinkin’ flopping.

Tweet This Post

My goodness, that was one lousy NBA team. I know, I know — it’s old Dwight, out there on the front porch screaming at the kids and shaking his fist, imploring that they please get off his lawn.

But seriously, the Warriors were terrible. Come on, NOBODY gets outscored 20-6 on fast-break points by the Portland Trail Blazers. Nobody. All I’m saying is that if the Trail Blazers think any of the games on the upcoming road trip will be as easy as that one, they’ll be mistaken.

More defense is going to be needed. Much more. The Warriors shot 50 percent against the Trail Blazers and basically didn’t work all that hard to get great shots. It would be wise for Portland players not to fall into the trap of thinking they’re suddenly playing well. They’re really not.

Great to see Brandon Roy back on the floor, though. The guy wasn’t really ready to play a wide-open game so he just basically took control of the pace all by himself and got it to his liking. The Blazers are so much more fun to watch when he’s out there.

Tweet This Post

One of the things I’ve liked about the Trail Blazers this season is that, for the most part, they’ve played smart. For a young team, they’ve done some pretty savvy things on the floor.

But Tuesday’s frustrating loss at Golden State was a big step back in that department. Very out of character. I mean, just a few minutes prior to the game, Coach Nate McMillan said on camera, “We want to take advantage of our size.” That’s a good call, it’s what everyone tries to do against the Warriors.

But the Blazers opened the game setting a horrible tone, taking outside jumper after outside jumper. The Warriors are small and you have to make them pay for it. Instead, other than getting the ball inside to Greg Oden, the Blazers didn’t take advantage of their size most of the game. At one point in the second quarter, there the Blazers were, trying to match up with Golden State by using three small guards at once. I swear, Don Nelson has the ability to make other coaches play his game to the point if he put a guy in a wheelchair on the court, the other coach would dash up to handicapped seating looking for someone on wheels to guard that guy.

Speaking of Oden, Portland players are still trying to get used to playing with him and seem to have trouble finding a balance of getting him the ball and playing off him — using his skills to free the other players for open shots.

That will come in time but it’s going to be very hard to resist putting him in the starting lineup. He’s got to get minutes with the starters and frankly, there’s no point in delaying much longer — he’s going to be a key part of this team and he needs to be a starter. And starting him will lead to extending his minutes, which he probably needs at this point.

By the way, no matter how bad the call was, Rudy Fernandez’s technical foul with five seconds to go in the game was a real bad play. You just can’t get a “T” when your team still has even a remote chance to win. And really, even though the referees had a rather bumpy night, it’s silly to blame them for this loss. When you’re out of timeouts as the Blazers were late in a game and don’t shoot a 3-pointer to attempt to tie it, you’re putting the game at risk. Then, when you have a flagrant lane violation (and yes, fans, just about every time they’re going to call the shooter for going over the line that early) on a MADE free throw late in a game, you’ve probably burned your chance to win.

Think about it — you can go ahead and gamble on crossing into the lane early on a missed free throw, because you’re probably not going to get the ball, anyway. You have nothing to lose. And the shooter is the one person on the floor who ought to be able to tell whether or not the ball is going to go in. But when you violate the line on a made foul shot, you take a point off the board. A very big point.

That’s just not smart.

Tweet This Post

They used to say that in boxing — that contrasting styles are what make a fight interesting.

Tonight’s matchup between the Blazers and Warriors will be intriguing because you have one team in a real hurry to get to the other end of the floor to hoist up a shot. And the other team that is carefully strolling, step by step, to the other end to take as much time as possible to get off its shot.

It’s the turtle and the rabbit, with the Blazers wearing the shell.

John Hollinger works so hard for ESPN crunching numbers that it’s a shame not to use them. Of course, I can’t directly link to them because they’re “Insider” — which really is a royal pain in the butt. Anyway, John — who is the closest thing basketball has to baseball’s Bill James — has unique team stats that can give you a useful picture of what’s going on in the NBA. I love his “pace factor” stats, which tell you how quickly teams play, based on the number of possessions they get per game.

The Warriors rank second in the league in pace factor, behind the Knicks, at 99.6. The Blazers? Last in the league by a good margin, at 87.5. That’s a huge difference, by the way — and one would have to think the real story of tonight’s game is which team will impose its will on the other. Can the Warriors get the Blazers to run with them? If the Blazers can slow the tempo down, will it be a big advantage?

I don’t know, but I see this as the kind of game the Blazers should win if they wish to establish themselves as a playoff team.

It will be interesting to see if Greg Oden’s regular appearance in Portland’s lineup changes its pace. You would assume Oden’s shot blocking might lead to a few more fast-break points. But on the other hand, teams with strong low-post centers tend to slow the game down so that their big man can get to the block and have a chance to influence the game.

There are a couple of other interesting things to be learned from Hollinger’s stats. I’d always thought of Nate McMillan as a defense-oriented coach. It’s the kind of player he was, certainly. But his impact on this year’s Portland team is much more at the offensive end. The Blazers rank third in the NBA in offensive efficiency, which is based on points per 100 possessions. Portland averages 107.7 points per 100 possessions, behind only Cleveland and Atlanta in that department. That surprised me.

But what didn’t shock me is that on defense, the Blazers rank ahead of only three other teams (New Jersey, Washington and Sacramento) in defensive efficiency, allowing 108.1 points per 100 possessions. That’s pretty awful but the real point is, the numbers say they are more inefficient on defense than they are efficient on offense. They give up more points than they score, which in the long run will get you a lot of losses.

But perhaps Oden will have an impact in that department, too. If Portland is to reach its goal of postseason play, that defensive number surely must improve. By quite a bit.

Tweet This Post