Finally, there is no other choice.

Yet it’s still taking some measure of agony, apparently, to get that starting lineup changed. Martell Webster to shooting guard, Nic Batum sliding in at small forward, right? What other choice is there with Brandon Roy out?

Yet, here we are again, with Coach Nate McMillan doing the same old waltz when it comes to an obvious lineup change. Just do it, man. What’s the delay? What are we waiting for?

This should have been done a couple of weeks ago, but hey — what do you expect. Lineup changes around here come hard. At the start of the season, if Andre Miller had just been put into the starting lineup alongside Brandon Roy — one point guard, not two — the team would have probably picked up three to five more wins by this point of the season.

Instead, we were subjected to all the hand-wringing involving Steve Blake and the problems of the “second unit” and who Brandon Roy could play with best. All of it was silly. The best point guard was Miller — from Day One. But it sure took a long time to get there.

Batum was the starter all last season and his improvement this season is obvious. Man, he’s needed at both ends of the court and he needs to get a lion’s share of his minutes alongside Miller — who will reward all his off-the-ball movement.

Just do it, Coach.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Martell Webster, Nate McMillan, Nic Batum, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Blake

I felt that that Portland home loss to the Lakers Saturday night — after nine straight wins here over the defending champs — seemed to really send some Trail Blazer fans over the edge. Now I realize for a lot of Blazer fans a Laker loss is traumatic, but be reasonable.

That streak had to end, whether Kobe Bryant played or not. The problem right now is that Los Angeles is the one team in the league that is just flat-out too big for the Blazers right now. With those centers on the injured list, Portland doesn’t have enough inside. And with Bryant out of the lineup, you had to know that the Lakers would come out with the express purpose of pounding the ball inside.

Which they did. Constantly.

And there’s too much length in there for Portland to handle. Way too much. As long as the Blazers shot the ball around 60 percent, they could stay in the game but the minute their shooting fell off, so did they. And when you get virtually no offensive rebounds, few fastbreak points, get pounded in the paint — you can’t possibly win.

One thing happened near the end of that game, when the Lakers’ Lamar Odom tried to dunk in the waning seconds. Blazer General Manager Kevin Pritchard, according to Kerry Eggers, got into a bit of a tiff with Odom about it, apparently thinking he was showing the Blazers up.

I had no problem with it. I never worry about the other team — just worry about your own team. I mean, you might try guarding him. For me, the worst thing in the waning moments of Trail Blazers losses lately has been Jerryd Bayless’s relentless pursuit of his own points.

You’ve seen it. Both teams are just playing the game out and that’s when he lowers his head, quits looking for teammates and just tries to steamroll to the basket to get his own points. No thought of looking for a teammate — just a seemingly selfish dash to grab cheap points.

It comes off a little cheesy.

AND ANOTHER THING I JUST THOUGHT OF:

There is one other thing the Trail Blazers do home game after home game that is not classy. Look, it’s fine to allow fans to bring and display signs in your arena that make fun of the visiting team. But to show them on the big screen is, in a way, sanctioning them. The one they showed Saturday on the screen comparing Pau Gasol to the Geico caveman was in poor taste for a franchise, if you ask me. And this sort of thing happens time after time.

It’s cheap and kind of embarrassing that a franchise would sanction signs that feature personal attacks on visiting players. It’s really not “making anything better.”

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Kevin Pritchard, Lamar Odom, Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers

Loved the Trail Blazer defense most of the game. They did a nice job stopping what the Spurs do best, ganged up nicely on Tim Duncan (who, by the way, isn’t moving a lot like Tim Duncan used to move) and after a slow start, held their own on the boards.

Loved the big play that resulted in Martell Webster’s open three-pointer that (should have) sealed the game. Andre Miller got great penetration, found Nic Batum in the corner, who didn’t hesitate in getting the ball to Webster, who had plenty of time to get his feet under him and settle into his three-pointer.

It was a smart play by smart players.

I didn’t like the misses at the foul line late. I expected more from Miller and LaMarcus Aldridge than that.

All in all, though, big game for the team to win against a Western Conference rival. A couple of other thoughts:

– The Spurs look so old and broken down. Their stars have so many miles on them.

– I think Batum is much more effective playing with Miller. His game is moving without the ball and Miller looks for him. I think, too, he’d fit better in a motion offense, rather than the standing-around stuff the Blazers do while watching pick-and-roll isolations.

– Huge game from Juwan Howard that was mostly overlooked by the media. He hasn’t made shots like that in a while.

– Brandon Roy needs to get back soon. I’m not sure how much longer the team is going to be able to hang on without him. Points are getting hard to come by.

– That may have been the Spurs’ A game last night. Not sure they have a whole lot left. They defend well at times, really well. But they can’t seem to do it consistently for the entire game. The energy just may not be there any more. Those guys have a lot of mileage on them from all those deep playoff runs.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Andre Miller, Dwight Jaynes, LaMarcus Aldridge, Martell Webster, Nic Batum, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan

It’s not as easy to explain as the Trail Blazers would like to make it seem — you know, just sort of dismissing these games by saying that Utah is the better team and that there’s really nothing they can do to stop the Jazz.

Yes, shooting 60 percent against you from the field three times in the same season is a rather amazing statistic. But just surrendering to the premise that the Jazz are better makes it a little too easy to duck the reasons for this happening. Look, the Trail Blazers have beaten some other teams that are better than they are this season — and have done so with regularity.

But when somebody absolutely annihilates you with their offense three straight times, perhaps it ought to prompt some deeper self analysis than simply dismissing it with an idea along the lines of “there’s nothing we can do.”

Given the Trail Blazers’ injuries, of course the Jazz are better. But that’s no excuse, in a league as competitive as the NBA, for Portland not giving a better showing than what we’ve seen in those three games.

My goodness, learn from what’s happening from game to game! If you absolutely can’t hustle enough to close out on three-point shooters any better than that, if you can’t defend the pick and roll any better than that, if you can’t understand their back-cuts any better than that, get into some other sort of defense sooner.

Changing zone defenses is one possibility. The zone worked a bit last night, although it’s obviously vulnerable over a long period. Why not offer up different sorts of zones, or a matchup? Obviously, defending the Jazz man-to-man is no option you want to stick with through an entire game.

You might also try to get back on defense a little better, too. Or simply commit your man-to-man defense into sinking into the paint — challenging the Jazz to knock down outside shots at the expense of getting inside. My goodness — 62 points in the paint in one game? Allow anything but that. I’d make them prove it from distance all night long rather than give up 62 points in the paint.

There are teams in the league who don’t shoot 60 percent from the field in a single game all season. To allow the same team to do it to you three times in the same season is almost bordering on insanity. There’s one more game left against Utah this season and it will be interesting to see what happens.

I cannot imagine another 60 percent shooting night. It can’t happen. Can it?

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz

It’s starting to drive me nuts. Heck, the guy was a starter last season as a rookie and opened training camp as the starting small forward. What’s up with not starting him now?

In fact, with Brandon Roy out of the lineup, it would seem imperative to get him out there as soon as possible for as many minutes as possible, right? If you want to keep Martell Webster’s minutes consistent, you can move Webster to the off-guard right now and play the two together — as was done for a while last night.

It’s crazy to wait on this thing. Batum has the most potential of ANY of the young Trail Blazers. The kid is downright Pippen-esqe — highly skilled and magnetic to watch at both ends of the floor. You can’t take your eyes off him.

In the last three games he has defended Aaron Brooks, Dirk Nowitzki and Stephen Jackson. And done it well. On offense he’s on fire, making outside shots and finishing around the basket as well as a Trail Blazer has done in years.

I’m bewildered why he was the third guy off the bench last night, much as I’m mystified why Coach Nate McMillan continues so often to use two point guards at the same time. Man, forget about how good the “second unit” is and worry about the starters — the guys who play the most minutes. Are we worried about hurting someone’s feelings or something?

Nic Batum needs to play as many minutes as his body can handle. For the growth of the franchise, he needs to grow because this kid has the potential to be the sidekick for Brandon Roy that LaMarcus Aldridge seems reluctant to become.

And get him on the floor with Andre Miller as often as possible, too. Miller looks for the kid, who is in constant motion, and finds him at just the right time. Batum has figured out that if he gets himself free, Miller will reward him and it can be a thing of beauty. He’s going to get lobs for dunks and open three-point shots from Miller — one more reason to get Batum into that starting lineup.

Man, it’s a no-brainer. Play him and play him a lot.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Nic Batum, Portland Trail Blazers

Man, the first quarter last night was a thing of beauty for the Utah Jazz — and basketball purists. The Jazz sliced and diced the Portland Trail Blazers, spread them out, isolated them and cut them up, laying them bare at both ends of the court in front of about 20,000 people.

Seriously, the new buzz words for the past several seasons in the NBA are cliches by now… all I’ve heard lately from teams is how they need to find players who can “create their own shot.” Yeah, well… I’m old-school. I admit that. But I remember when basketball was a beautiful team game –when it was systems that created shots. And that’s what I saw from the Jazz last night.

Jerry Sloan has never been coach of the year? What a joke. He’s one of the last holdouts who plays the game the right way, who has a system at both ends of the court and sticks to it — and makes sure his players do, too.

Did you see the Jazz just handing the ball to a player last night, asking him to go one-on-one to get a shot? And it’s not as if they couldn’t do that, either. Deron Williams could do it any time. But he works within a proven system that provides great shots for everyone — and Williams has no trouble getting his within that system.

Rick Adelman does this. So do Phil Jackson and Larry Brown. They understand that moving the ball, moving bodies and demanding that players be disciplined within a team framework is critical to winning basketball. For all you young people who think basketball is nothing but isolations and clear outs, who think you win by just handing the ball to your best guy and staying out of his way — well, get your hands on a video of last night’s game.

A lot of fans think that just because John Stockton and Karl Malone were in Utah so long running pick-and-rolls, that what Utah does is pretty predictable. But no way. Even in those days, the Jazz would come at that play in so many different ways, from so many different angles. You’d have to stop all sorts of back cuts, off-the-ball screens and player movement before they got to that play.

And you wonder why Malone and Stockton stuck around for almost two decades, playing in nearly every single game that whole time? Well, they were never asked to carry the same load that a Brandon Roy carries on a nightly basis — the task of taking the ball in the middle of the floor and constantly trying to beat multiple defenders on the way to the basket.

I get so frustrated with people who think that’s how you play winning basketball.

Look, last season the Houston Rockets ate the Blazers alive in the playoffs — and Portland came away saying it needed one more player, in addition to Brandon Roy, who could get his own shot. Meanwhile, the Blazers had been carved up by a team with NO players who could get their own shot but instead played a team game, stayed within a structured group of sets, ran plays, worked to get each other open.

Is nobody paying attention to this? Your system is supposed to get you shots, too — but it doesn’t happen here very much.

And at the other end of the court, well, it’s the same thing. For most of the first half, the Trail Blazers couldn’t get an open look. They had trouble getting to the basket and getting open threes. The Jazz got out to Portland’s guards while still being able to seal off the inside as well as anyone the Blazers have played.

Rudy Fernandez, Andre Miller, Martell Webster and Steve Blake combined to go 8 for 39 from the field. Jerryd Bayless was 5 for 12, but made that many only because he was relentless in his pursuit of cheap buckets late in the game when the issue was decided.

In the second half, things became a little more equal because Carlos Boozer left in the middle of the third quarter with a calf strain, right about the time Williams went to the bench with his fourth foul and Utah was pretty bad at the foul line. Besides, the trailing team, especially at home, always gets that run in the second half.

(By the way, it was a typical LaMarcus Aldridge game — great statistics at the end of the night but if you were watching the game, you wouldn’t like what you saw. For most of the night, Boozer just annihilated him. If he hadn’t gotten hurt, he’d have thrown Aldridge off the Broadway Bridge by the fourth quarter.)

But don’t let that obscure what happened in this game. The Jazz gave the Trail Blazers a very big lesson on how the game is supposed to be played. And it’s real important that everyone understand that.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Brandon Roy, Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams, Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, Jerry Sloan, Larry Brown, NBA, Phil Jackson, Portland Trail Blazers, Rick Adelman, Utah Jazz

Kid took a tough situation and made the best he could of it. Loved his honesty and willingness to admit his mistake. So many people told me they listened to him talk about it and liked him more afterward than they did before.

His poise was extremely impressive.

Keep your jokes out of the comments please, but if you’d like to talk about how you feel about Greg Oden now, compared to when you first heard about this, feel free.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Portland Trail Blazers

Chris Paul wide open at the end of a game for the eventual game-winner? The ball in Jerryd Bayless’s hands in the waning seconds for a jump shot? That’s what we saw last night. And in the end, the Trail Blazers gave back one of those hard-fought road wins they got last week.

Ugh.

Paul got open in a bit of a freaky play, falling down — and apparently out of sight — before getting up and finding himself open for what amounted to a free throw to win the game. It was like one of those football plays where the tight end goes to the ground as if to block and then gets up and into a pass pattern.

Then the Trail Blazers inbound to Bayless — way out almost near the halfcourt line. Now Brandon Roy might be able to get you a makeable shot in that situation — since just about any shot is makeable for Roy — but Bayless? Well, if he isn’t going to attempt to get the ball to the basket, I’m not sure I like his chances with a jump shot.

But that game was lost in the minutes before those last two possessions. The Trail Blazers, no doubt fatigued from their trip, didn’t seem to have enough energy to finish. Andre Miller, especially, seemed to have nothing left in the tank.

Next time around, I’d love to see Martell Webster or Rudy Fernandez get that final shot, by the way. It was another excruciating loss, quite obviously. And with the upcoming schedule, there may be more to come.

The All-Star break can’t get here soon enough for this team. It needs a few days off.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Chris Paul, Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Martell Webster, New Orleans Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Rudy Fernandez

I’m hearing from all over that this may be Nate McMillan’s best coaching job. You know with the injuries and all that maybe he ought to be the Coach of the Year. But there are those who disagree and it seems many of them comment on this blog.

And I can kind of see where they’re going with their arguments. I mean, at the start of the season, this team had two big tasks — to integrate Greg Oden into the offense, thus moving to more of an inside-outside attack AND to somehow decide on a proper player rotation with all the talent on this roster.

I’m not sure either problem was ever appropriately dealt with. And in fact, the injuries eliminated them as problems. Rather than go inside-outside or really change their style of play at all, the Trail Blazers are now back to playing the way they’ve always played.

You could also make the case that McMillan’s stubbornness in regard to starting Andre Miller hurt the effort early in the season. In fact, the thing that seemed to get Miller straightened out was confronting the coach. I mean, if Miller doesn’t go off on McMillan, does that thing ever really going to get straightened out?

So you give McMillan credit for that?

Again, I’m not sure. You could say that in the face of all the injuries, he kept the team together, but really? Really? It seems to me that if you say that, you’re saying that the character of this team somehow was so weak that these guys wouldn’t have played hard if not for the coach. I don’t buy that.

I think it’s more the case that even though Portland has been hurt by an absolute avalanche of injuries, what’s left is still pretty good. In fact, it’s real good. And by lowering expectations, thus the pressure, they’ve prospered in an environment where they knew they had guaranteed minutes.

Martell Webster, for instance. This is a guy whose minutes always seemed to be jerked around. Often, when he made a mistake or two he was pulled out of the game in a hurry. Now, given the situation, he’s playing no matter what — because they have nobody else. And he’s been sensational.

It’s been one interesting season. And any coaching evaluations would probably be best delayed until the end. Let’s see how it all works out.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Martell Webster, Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers

You gotta recall Patty Mills from the D League! The team is down to just two point guards and everyone knows you need four or five!

Centers, though, I guess you don’t need ANY of those, right? Most unbalanced roster in the NBA?

Tweet This Post

Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Patty Mills, Portland Trail Blazers