You just can’t kill them, no matter what you do.

A great effort by the Portland Trail Blazers last night. When you consider that the Phoenix Suns had four days off prior to that game and that they were on a five-game win streak. And oh yes, the Blazers had lost nine straight in Phoenix.

A nice job of sharing the ball and bringing energy — which is hard to do on the second of back-to-back games. But for some strange reason, back-to-backs have been a real bonus for Portland, with 10 wins in 13 tries. No question, it’s a resilient bunch.

That said, man what a difference between the Suns and Oklahoma City Thunder in terms of defensive intensity. Huge difference. The Suns are all about selling regular-season tickets with their style of play. But the way they play is going to make it just about impossible to win a playoff series. You just have to have more understanding of team defense than what they bring. I’ve said it before but Terry Porter was on the right track in Phoenix.

The Suns didn’t like it one bit, but what Porter was selling — a commitment to physical team defense — was exactly what that franchise still needs. But the front office gave in and what the Suns are left with is an entertaining style that pleases fans, doesn’t tax players much but really — it just isn’t conducive to long-term winning.

Dismissing the Suns doesn’t mean the Trail Blazers didn’t bring a great effort to this game. Steve Blake was terrific and LaMarcus Aldridge had a tremendous first half to get his team going. It was a wonderful response to that awful home loss Tuesday night at home to the Thunder.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, LaMarcus Aldridge, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers

The Trail Blazers just didn’t bring much last night in that 89-77 loss to Oklahoma City — in a game that most of us thought was extremely important.

Look, nobody expects miracles out of these guys with Brandon Roy and the two centers on the sidelines. But what we saw Tuesday night against the Thunder was unacceptable, considering the importance of playing a division and playoff rival.

It was the worst exhibition of trying to feed the post I’ve seen in the NBA in maybe, well, forever. Twenty-four turnovers by a team that doesn’t run? Ridiculous! Over and over in the fourth quarter, players ran from open shots to try to force the ball into others.

The Thunder, statistically and every other way, is so much better defensively than the Trail Blazers that it’s ridiculous. And that’s a little scary given how young that team is.

And really, how often is Portland going to win when it goes 3-for-20 from the three-point line? The team is too dependent on jump shots as it is, but when it totally craps out from deep, there’s simply no way it can win — given the fast-break points are never going to be there to make up for it.

LaMarcus Aldridge had another one of those games where it was difficult to figure him out. He played 43 minutes and finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds. He was swarmed by the Thunder all night, double and triple-teamed. But that said, there were times when he seemed so reluctant to mix it up. He’d take a dribble or two toward the basket, draw a crowd and then kind of just bail out — stepping back out of harm’s way.

He looked contact shy, as if he just didn’t want to challenge anyone in a physical way. At one point, he was booed when he backed the ball out of the post area.

I don’t know, maybe they’re all just tired. I hope that’s it, because a nice rest is near. The alternative is that they’ve just run out of ways to win without Roy. And I guess I could understand that.

But man, that one was ugly.

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Tags: Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers

I don’t think this win is anything to get too fired up about. Sorry, don’t mean to be a downer, but Portland didn’t play very well — it’s just that the Sonics/Thunder played worse.

And Kevin Durant? Look, I give Martell Webster all the credit in the world for hustling around and doing his best. Webster’s effort level this season has been among the best on the team. But Durant was awful. He missed a ton of shots he’s usually going to make. He was just out of kilter.

I loved the way Portland came out of the chute in this game. They ran halfcourt motion and moved the ball. They moved bodies. Heck, the Blazers even once scored when Steve Blake made a backdoor cut and got the ball for a layup — the first such thing I can remember this season. Wow — actually a basket out of an offensive set, rather than from someone going one-on-one!

Greg Oden was getting the ball early, feeling a part of things and it all looked great. But coach Nate McMillan, apparently following a predetermined substitution plan, lifted Oden and Blake at the six-minute mark and it kind of went south from there. Oh well — a lot of coaches do that. When you have a long bench full of guys who need to play, such things happen.

It was a win and in the NBA you shouldn’t complain about wins. But as I said earlier this young season, don’t always confuse poor shooting by an opponent with good defense. Some nights, they just miss shots. I was shocked, actually, at how poorly the Thunder played.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Nate McMillan, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Blake

My buddy Ben over at Blazers Edge has a post today telling us that people even now (including Clyde Drexler) are saying they are. He adds some positive comments from John Hollinger, too.

I think it’s at least 50-50 that it will happen as early as this season. But I’m thinking that after this season, it’s surely going to happen. It seems to me that San Antonio has made the most positive moves this summer in the West — but that given the age and injury history of the Spurs’ key player, Tim Duncan, and the injury problems of Manu Ginobili, you can’t project them very far out. I will, though, give Gregg Popovich this season and say he’s going to have the Spurs nipping at the Lakers’ sneakers.

Dallas made some decent moves this summer, too, but its window is beginning to close and I’m not sure this bunch is ever going to overcome the memory of blowing that NBA title that Miami stole from them.

Denver? Well, perhaps George Karl can hold that circus together for one more season but I sense implosion will eventually occur. I am just not fond of the mix of players in Denver and I think there are selfish players there. Chauncey Billups is going to have his hands full trying to keep everyone happy about getting the ball enough.

Houston? A long shot to even make the playoffs now, without Yao and with Tracy McGrady questionable. It’s a shame a team can go from that good to that bad in such a short time. Phoenix is kind of the same story — the best player is aging, the rest of team full of question marks. Maybe, MAYBE, one more playoff run if Amare Stoudemire is healthy. But the long term future of the Suns is pretty cloudy.

One team that is on the rise, though, is Utah. If Trail Blazer fans are sitting around waiting for their young team to get better, I think Jazz fans are doing the same. If Utah can find a way to move Carlos Boozer and get value in return, you know Jerry Sloan is likely to milk a pretty good season out of the Jazz.

I also look for the Clippers to be much better this season and a probable playoff team. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy and they’re certainly not going to be a threat to the Lakers, but if you’ve seen anything of Blake Griffin, you know that he’s going to be an impact player.

Oklahoma City (it still pains me to write that name down as an NBA franchise holder) is going to be a factor very soon, too. I expect them to make a big leap in wins this upcoming season.

Overall, though, I think the West is slowly starting to regress back toward the East, which is getting better each year, thanks to a lot of high draft picks and the presence of superstars like D-Wade, Dwight Howard, LeBron and The Big Three in Boston. It always runs in cycles and I think we can see, out there on the horizon, the West’s cycle coming to an end.

I can see in a couple of seasons, the balance of power shifting eastward and by then, it’s going to be the Lakers and Trail Blazers kind of alone at the top in the West. Not sure, though, if the thinning of the conference talent helps Portland or not. That remains to be seen. Certainly it will lead to more gaudy won-loss records — which is a bigger deal than people think because of all those playoff homecourt advantages gained based on season record – even though it’s a league where nobody plays the same schedule.

I’ve not been sure all summer that the Trail Blazers would be able to improve much on those 54 wins of last season, just because they were so fortunate last year to win so many close games. Stat guys will tell you that over time, that’s not much due to skill as it is good fortune and that eventually, it evens out, even for the good teams. What the good teams do is win a lot of games by big margins — which the Trail Blazers will begin doing.

And now that I see the conference rapidly aging and the younger teams still not quite ready to step up another level, I think Portland actually does have a real chance to get up close to that 60-win level, assuming no major injuries, which, as we know is a major assumption.

Of course, it’s still early. Between now and late October there’s still time for Martell Webster to reinjure that foot, Greg Oden to step on someone’s ankle, the Clippers to lose two or three players to injury or for Ron Artest to do something stupid.

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Tags: Dallas Mavericks, Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA Western Conference, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs

I couldn’t find anything about this trade in my morning paper but it’s supposedly done — with the Minnesota Timberwolves ending up with the No. 5 pick in the draft alongside the No. 6 choice they already owned.

David Kahn is no shrinking violet and he now controls a key part of the draft. He’s busting his tail to improve a team that sadly needs it. I have no idea what he’s going to do with those back-to-back choices but if he picks (or trades) wisely, the Wolves have a chance to get better in a hurry.

It looks now to me that he’s not going to get a shot at Ricky Rubio, though. All signs point to Oklahoma City grabbing him after Memphis takes Hasheem Thabeet. That leaves Sacramento in a tough spot and the word down there is the Kings like Jonny Flynn.

I think the Minnesota trade — and Rubio apparently coming to some agreement to play in Oklahoma City — drastically inhibits Portland’s chances of moving up. The Blazers may not be able to get up to get the players who would make great trade pieces (Rubio and Stephen Curry) now. You could see a Portland draft where not much happens, other than the move everyone knows they have to make — shipping Sergio Rodriguez somewhere, with probably not much coming back in return.

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Tags: David Kahn, Dwight Jaynes, Hasheem Thabeet, Jonny Flynn, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Ricky Rubio, Stephen Curry

Ugh. The Thunder brought nothing into town Monday night. Not that Portland didn’t play well — the Blazers were terrific. But you really would like to see the other team at least make it look as if it cared. It didn’t.

Man, that was some rotten effort. Hey, I almost forgot — which one of those guys was the Durant kid, anyway?

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers

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.

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Tags: Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs

Defense is better. Offense is better. LaMarcus Aldridge is better.

That’s a pretty good combination. Portland’s Friday night win over Oklahoma City/Seattle was a complete thrashing. What the old timers used to call a trip to the woodshed.

Running the floor has been such a key for Aldridge. He gets those fastbreak layups two or three times a game and it really seems to be a great foundation for his entire game. And he’s in one of those spells where he’s making very difficult shots — those fallaway jumpers from 17 feet off a reverse pivot — look like throwing pennies into a bathtub.

The Blazers seem to be just now waking up to how good they are. It’s as if someone threw a switch after that horrible loss at home to Philadelphia. All that talk about how young they are is out the window. It’s all about talent at this time of the season. And there are some very talented players on this team. And now that they’re playing with aggression worthy of that talent, they’re finally moving forward in all areas of their game.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, LaMarcus Aldridge, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers

Portland lost at Oklahoma City earlier in the season. The Thunder are going to be a good team very soon, with a solid base of young players to build on.

It still kills me that this isn’t the Seattle Sonics. Could you imagine what would be happening in the Pacific Northwest right now? Two good young teams that could be facing off annually against each other for division championships very soon? The whole Oden vs. Durant deal? The Blazers’ personal Seattle connection with Brandon Roy, Martell Webster, Nate McMillan and even Paul Allen?

I remember those days so well when fans of both teams drove up and down the freeway, scrounging tickets into the other guys’ building for games — heated rivals in enemy territory rooting their teams onward.

And for much of that time, we went through periods when one team was really good and the other was not. There weren’t too many years when both were championship contenders. But that could easily happen in just a couple of seasons.

It’s past the time to place blame for all of this, but suffice it to say there’s enough blame to go from New York to Seattle. The Sonics are gone and the Blazers are left without a respected rival and — don’t underestimate this — a geographic scheduling partner that allowed the team to have at least one road trip that was shorter than two and a half hours.

The whole thing is a shame. A dirty shame.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Seattle Sonics

Almost on a daily basis, we must hear about how youthful the Trail Blazers are. Today, reading The Oregonian, I lost track of how many times I read the words “young,” “youngest,” and “rookie.” It’s almost like creating some sort of excuse for them by lowering expectations. Come on, they’re an extremely talented bunch of players and we shouldn’t be all that amazed at how well they’re doing.

You’ve got a two-time all-star at guard, a No. 1 overall pick at center, a power forward who a lot of people in this town wouldn’t trade for Amare Stoudemire, a six-year veteran swing man coming off the bench who is a fourth-quarter specialist and an exciting dunker/three-point specialist who may be a rookie by NBA standards but is considered by some the best pro in Europe. The roster is packed with first-round picks.

And I had to read all that “youth” stuff the day after a story appeared detailing how tired the team is. My goodness, guys — if you are tired, imagine how worn out some of the old guys in the league are. And think about how exhausted those old guys will be come playoff time. Certainly being young and not having all that mileage on your legs has to help in some distant way, doesn’t it?

But not only do we have to continually hear about Portland’s youth, now we must contend with quotes like this — about a simple pick-and-roll — backing up the whole babies-in-diapers thing:

“Earlier in the season, I would have just went, and tried to go (at the basket),” said Bayless, who was playing in his 31st game. “But I just gave it to Joel and he got a layin. That’s just something I’ve learned from watching film, that I’ve gradually gotten better with, noticing things and different matchups on the court.”

Hey, no offense to Bayless. But really, isn’t this carrying the whole “youth” thing a little too far? You mean the guy had to study film and play 30 games in the NBA to learn that when someone sets a pick and rolls off it, the guy rolling off the pick might be open?

If you played basketball for anyone with an IQ higher than a bowling ball, you learned that stuff in the seventh grade without benefit of intense film study. Of course, I guess this kid came up through America’s hotshot AAU, “select team” system, where nobody probably ever set a pick for anyone else. They all just grabbed for the ball and raced to the basket, one step ahead of the recruiters and street agents. Yeah, and in the sixth grade.

By now, I guess I should be shocked this young team knows how to find its way to the arena safely. And I hope they all have rides home after the games.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Sonics