There’s really no such thing as a bad win…
February 24th, 2010 by Dwight Jaynes | 29 Comments | Filed in NBA, Trail BlazersA former Trail Blazer coach, after a rather narrow win over an inferior opponent, told me that he was feeling pretty down about the game for a little while.
“But I told myself before I ever took this job that you should never feel bad about winning a game,” he said. “So I try to feel good about every win.”
In this case, it may not have been easy. Watching a team with five total wins this season march down the Trail Blazer lane like hungry men steaming through a Taco Bell drive-through in pursuit of a chalupa, was a little depressing there in the second half. Portland’s defense, other than poor, outnumbered Nic Batum, was horrible.
By the way, all you people out there defending Nate for not starting Batum, what can you say now? So was Nate wrong? By the way, the only problem now is that the kid needs more minutes. Your only good defender needs to play more than 23 minutes on a night when one of the worst shooting teams in basketball is firing at a 49.3 percent clip.
By the way, McMillan said before the game that Batum would be the starter at small forward for the remainder of the season. Not sure why a coach would commit to something like that. There’s no reason. Most coaches would not paint themselves into such a corner.
And watching another center go down wasn’t pleasant, either. Folks, this whole thing about injured centers isn’t just a Portland thing. It’s seemingly harder and harder to keep the big guys healthy. Look around the league. It’s dangerous with all that traffic inside. (That said, this franchise is one historically unlucky place when it comes to centers).
And if your biggest shot of the night is a three-pointer from Andre Miller, you know that things reached desperate levels.
But on the other hand, seeing Brandon Roy out there very close to 100 percent is the best thing that could happen to this team. Without Roy, the playoffs are an impossible dream.
It will be interesting tonight to see what this team has left for a back-to-back.
Tags: Andre Miller, Brandon Roy, New Jersey Nets, Nic Batum, Portland Trail Blazers


