Thanks to several commenters who pointed it out, here’s a very nice Sam Amick piece on Sergio’s big game against New Orleans, that included this:

“Sergio (has) been a complete pro,” said Westphal, who was without the services of center Spencer Hawes (bruised right knee, day-to-day). “He has kind of kicked the door down (toward earning minutes) with the way he played in practice … and his stints get longer and longer.”

Nice to see good things happening to good people.

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That’s the next meaningful date for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Yes, they can speak to free agents on July 1, but they can’t sign any. And until July 8 they can’t do an unbalanced trade — a deal that allows them to spend cap space rather than players to balance out salaries. They will find out the cap number sometime on July 7 and be able to move at midnight. This same situation seems to be affecting all the various Amare Stoudemire trade scenarios.

Everyone is talking about free agency for the Blazers but Kevin Pritchard admitted Thursday night that it’s just as likely the cap room the Blazers have — still uncertain because the cap figure could drop from last season — could be used in a trade as be used in a free-agent signing.

Pritchard also said the team already has a list of players in mind it will target and will not necessarily limit itself to signing or obtaining just one player. There’s no doubt that point guards are high on the list.

All in all, a pretty dull night for Blazer fans, who obviously are accustomed to a lot more drama. But whatever. We’re going to have to wait a couple more weeks for that.

One small farewell: I’m going to miss Sergio Rodriguez. He was a real fun player to watch operate when he had the freedom to wheel and deal. I hope he has a great career in Sacramento.

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Sean does a real good job of reporting them and debunking them all at the same time right here. For Sergio Rodriguez, I hope there’s some truth to the Knicks rumors. New York (or Toronto) would be a great spot for him, a place where he can play his game and flourish.

But I have no interest in the Trail Blazers moving up in the draft. I’m weary of the young players trying to earn a spot in the league. I want to see this team get MORE experienced, not LESS experienced.

As far as all the David Lee stuff, I just can’t see it — except in one way that some Blazer fans probably wouldn’t want to see happen. The only way it makes any sense at all to me for Lee to come to Portland (probably in a sign-and-trade) is for the Blazers to have some idea about trading LaMarcus Aldridge. I’m not saying they do — I’m just saying it’s the only thing that makes any sense if they’re trying to get Lee.

Lee would be big man No. 4 in Portland, behind Greg Oden, Joel Przybilla and Aldridge. Why, as a free agent, would he want to do that? Plus, he’s going to be seeking a contract that will pay him starting-power-forward money. You can’t give your backup power forward the kind of dough Lee is going to get.

It makes no sense. But if you could take Aldridge, put him with Rudy Fernandez and get a Chris Paul, for example, would you do that if you knew you had David Lee?

I’m not saying I’ve heard this or that I even expect it to happen. Frankly, I’m making up a scenario. But I’m just saying I don’t think Aldridge is untouchable and if I thought I could get David Lee without giving up Aldridge, I think I’d shop Aldridge for a superstar point guard.

So really then, this whole exercise comes down to this — who would you rather have as your starting power forward: David Lee or LaMarcus Aldridge?

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I really don’t know what to make of this idle chat, which features a discussion of dealing Nic Batum, Steve Blake and Greg Oden for Tony Parker. Are you kidding me? Is it April Fool’s Day again already? Is somebody trying to punk me here?

Yeah, I know — it’s supposed to be three guys sitting on a park bench idly chattering. It’s one of those “would you trade . . .” kind of deals rather than a prediction of something that could ever actually happen. But come on, this is the kind of nonsense that would get you laughed out of your favorite barber shop. It’s a non-starter of a topic even in that venue. It reminds me a little of the silly “Who would you rather be, Superman or Batman?” arguments we used to have in sixth grade.

So you’re saying that the Blazers — who still have Jermaine O’Neal nightmares every time they consider trading the likes of Travis Outlaw or Sergio Rodriguez — are going to let go of Nic Batum and Greg Oden, together, at this point of their careers?

Nope. Especially not for a guy who is going to be a free agent in a year. I cannot imagine handing Batum and Oden to Gregg Popovich and then watching him turn those guys into multi-year all-stars.

Besides, I’m still the guy out here believing that someday Oden is going to turn into the XXL version of Dwight Howard.

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Sorry this post is going up a little later than I would have wanted. I just get so tired of writing the same things about the Trail Blazers I’m not as motivated to sit down and do it.

Just a few of the great many irritating things about Friday night’s three-pont loss at Houston:

– In the first half, Portland was playing so ugly it was incredibly fortunate to be within 20 points at the half. Jeff Van Gundy, doing analysis on ESPN, second-guessed several things we’ve been talking about all season long, including a pointed comment about why the Blazers don’t quit shooting “jump shot after jump shot” and throw the ball into Oden; and also a suggestion that even though Oden drew a couple of quick fouls, it’s difficult to play when you only get two or three-minute bursts and that the Blazers ought to leave him in with those two fouls.

Amen, brother.

– Do people understand why Oden should have played more minutes and been given the ball more during the regular season? You simply have to have an inside game — particularly if you play as if you think fast-break baskets are illegal.

– How in the world do you call a timeout, draw up a play and then get a shot-clock violation with three minutes to play in the game?

– Sometimes I seriously wonder about Brandon Roy. I mean, Portland’s down by six with a minute to go and he’s out there dribbling around for 20 seconds before launching a shot. What’s that all about? Play with some sense of urgency! Of course, it might be because at times, Houston has completely taken Portland out of whatever offense it is supposed to be running.

– Taking Ron Artest off the dribble is not difficult for Roy. He can do it just about whenever he wants. But beating the next three guys who pick him up on the way to the basket is difficult. Portland’s going to have to either figure a way for him to dump the ball off to open teammates or do something else but just have him play one-on-one. Hey, what about posting him up? Well, I don’t think they have that play.

– It didn’t matter WHERE this game was played. It was there for the taking for the Trail Blazers, particularly late.

– Don’t even get me started on attacking the basket. Yes, Yao will block a few shots. But the Blazers seemed petrified of him. Folks, there are better shotblockers than this guy. He WILL let you shoot and he has very little lateral mobility. All you need is to pull him out just a few feet and then go around him — he can’t move!!!! Oden dunked the ball on him twice in the third quarter when he had running starts off pick and rolls. Steve Blake and LaMarcus Aldridge had moments Friday when they had the ball in the basket area and just slammed on the breaks, put it in reverse and bailed out on scoring opportunities.

– At the defensive end, same old story there, too. Guys, contest shots. Get a hand up. You’re not supposed to be giving up open jumpers, layups and dunks in the playoffs. Ugh.

– I’ve made this point about a thousand times. For three straight possessions at the end of the third quarter, when it seemed Portland was finally convincing itself it could get back in the game, the Blazers scored on dunks — two by Oden, one by Aldridge — off the end of the pick and roll. It was Blake orchestrating those pick and rolls. If only Roy would make that pass off HIS pick and rolls, the whole makeup of the game would change — but he just won’t look for it. It looked like Stockton to Malone on those possessions, folks — with Oden thundering to the hoop like a runaway train and Aldridge slipping the pick the way Karl often did.

Man, put Yao into that pick and roll and make him defend out on the floor! This isn’t Rocket science.

– If Blake found himself wide open with nine seconds left, yes — that’s an OK shot. But come on — that was RUDY’S SHOT! Everyone knows it. Rudy has to take that shot and there’s plenty of time to get him the ball. Except without a timeout, the Blazers were just standing around looking at each other, and not running that play with Rudy on the baseline running around picks. Why? I don’t know.

– Once or twice during the game, the ESPN mic caught McMillan telling his team to quit thinking. Fooled me. I didn’t see much evidence they were thinking.

– Roy and Aldridge couldn’t play any worse than that, yet Portland still nearly won. The Rockets do so many little things, stick to their defensive system, contest shots, block out on the boards, hustle for loose balls and work for good shots — that’s a big difference in this series, not talent, for sure.

– After that game, if the Blazers don’t think they can win at Houston, they really ought to come home and clean out their lockers.

– No, Sunday is NOT a must win. It’s only a must win when you have three defeats already. Portland will win Game 5 at home regardless of what happens Sunday night and then all the pressure in the world would be on Houston to close it out at home in Game 6.

– Sergio didn’t play a minute. Most of the season he’s the backup point guard and then he plays a total of about six minutes in the first two games, leading to a no-show in Game 3. Not sure that worked. Putting the ball in Roy’s hands even longer really isn’t much of an advantage in a game like that, when Roy’s struggling, anyway. He feels such an obligation to score these days, I’m not sure he’s the playmaker he was last season.

– Man, Travis Outlaw is pulling a Clifford Robinson. Get Rudy some of those minutes!

– Portland had a decent defensive plan, but didn’t execute it. Doubling off Scola is fine, but hustle back to him when he has the ball! Even Van Gundy was frustrated, imploring Aldridge to “close out on him” when Scola was open from 18 feet. These are professional players, they hit open shots — so don’t give them open shots. Not a difficult concept.

– I could go on and on. What a disappointing effort this one was. But it’s probably just best to stop right now.

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I would expect both teams would change a few things for the first game at Houston. In no particular order, here are the possibilities:

– I think everyone expects Houston to clamp down on Brandon Roy in some way – it must get the ball out of his hands a little more often. The Rockets do not like to double team but I believe we’ll see some of that tonight on Roy. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Roy doubled on every Blazer pick and roll. To counter this, Roy could actually pass the ball to the player who has set the pick and rolled off. I’ve been saying this for months now, but it would be a much more effective play if he looked for the guy rolling off once or twice a game.

– The Blazers seriously need to find another scorer tonight. Rudy Fernandez or Travis Outlaw are obviously the leading candidates but Greg Oden is a possibility, too. It is nothing new for the Trail Blazers to see Roy double-teamed, but when this happens, other players have to respond by hitting open shots. Obviously, when there are double-teams, there ARE open shots.

– With Yao Ming now the only Houston center, Portland can attack the basket with much more reckless abandon — even when Yao is on the floor. I would guess Yao will be taking extra care to avoid foul trouble now that Dikembe Mutombo is out. And certainly when Yao is on the bench, Portland ought to be relentlessly attacking the basket.

– People expect Oden to dominate during his stretches when Yao is on the bench and I think he will — but it may not show in the rebounding stats. Teams are increasingly using two people to keep him off the boards. People like Outlaw, Roy and Nic Batum are going to have to be more alert on the boards because they may not be blocked out very well.

– Oden needs to slow down. The playoffs have him all geeked up and if he’d just take a little more time, he’d be fine. These will be critical games for him because he’s going to be expected to accomplish some things. If he calms down on offense, there are 20 points out there for him tonight. And on defense, I’d love to see him trail Aaron Brooks along the baseline, rather than try to cut him off and take stupid fouls. He still seems to just give up on certain defensive plays — but rather than just allow the basket, he hammers somebody. That’s not a great option when you’re needed on the floor for about 24 minutes.

– Portland will continue to double-team Yao whenever possible. Any single coverage is like giving him points. Just make him work for what he gets and force the Rockets to find other scorers.

– The Blazers just have to get better on their rotations and cut off the easy baskets for the Rockets. That last win at home was deceptive because of all the easy baskets Houston players missed. Luis Scola had at least three layups that looked to be dead into the basket, only to somehow pop out. That won’t happen again.

– Portland simply cannot allow Houston to continue to shoot in the 50 percent range from the field. That’s ridiculous. Now you can say that the Rockets have just been on fire and are due to stop hitting those shots. I guess that’s true, but they’re getting so many good inside looks and wide-open shots from distance, I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect them to miss many of them.

– Adios, Sergio. I figure this is his last chance to get that little three-minute look in the second quarter. If he doesn’t play well in that little bite of time, he’s probably done with meaningful playing time for the series. It’s too bad.

– I believe if Portland can stay in the game through three quarters, they’ll own the game. How long can Aaron Brooks keep hitting those monster, fourth-quarter three-pointers?

– The Rockets will actually try to run when they’re at home. Portland knows that and allowing them easy fastbreak baskets is a sin.

– Do not forget that Houston has lost six straight first-round series. Their fans certainly haven’t forgotten. If the Rockets fall behind in the first half of this game, the natives will get very restless and doubt will begin to creep into everyone’s mind.

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A few items before looking ahead to the playoffs:

– An incredible season, all in all. Congrats to Paul Allen, Kevin Pritchard, Tom Penn, Larry Miller, Nate McMillan and the dozens of dedicated Trail Blazer employees who make it a very special organization. My hat is off to them. The success they have had this season is well deserved.

– Wednesday night’s game was perhaps the weirdest of the season. Can you remember a game where the winning team’s starting lineup didn’t produce a single player who scored in double figures? How about a game where the starters combined for just 32 points — yet the team scored 104 and won by 28? That’s borderline ridiculous.

– Sergio Rodriguez had one of those games where you wonder just how good he could be for a team that wants to push the ball all the time. Man, he’d be good for the Knicks.

– Rudy Fernandez had a great night — but he looks awfully gimpy to me. His back was bothering him, big time, by the end of the game. And I also believe the two men from Spain are the only ones who really understand how to feed the ball to a big guy at the rim.

– The Blazers have had so much more energy than the teams they’ve been playing lately and Wednesday was no exception.

– Carmelo Anthony was worse, even, than his 3-for-18 shooting night indicated. The guy is easily distracted.

– LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy combined for 15 points on 6-for-17 shooting. And the Blazers won by 28 — that’s not likely to happen again for a decade or so.

– Man, New Orleans let Michael Finley get off a clear three-point shot to tie that game at the end of regulation down in San Antonio and it messed up the seeding all through the conference. Foul the guy.

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Am I the only one who noticed that the two-game benching of Sergio Rodriguez is now being portrayed as something that was designed to fire up the backup point guard?

Come on, are you buying that?

To me, it was that the coach didn’t like the way Sergio was playing and decided to give Jerryd Bayless a shot at winning the position. Period. Bayless flunked the tryout and McMillan went back to Sergio. But now to make it appear that the Bayless thing was done merely to light a fire under Sergio, that’s a real reach.

Sure, it may have worked out that way, accidentally — but that wasn’t the reason for doing it.

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During that great Portland run late in the third quarter, I remembered something Rick Adelman used to say when his Blazer teams in the early 90s played a great game.

“We were really in tune,” he’d often say. “The guys were really in tune with what we wanted to do.”

That’s what I thought I saw last night. Man, there were times when Portland played together about as well as it has all season. Really solid. Some thoughts:

– Sergio Rodriguez is really stepping it up. He’s penetrating and finding people and you can’t convince me he doesn’t see the floor better than any Portland point guard. He had about three passes last night that were eye-popping and logged eight assists and just one turnover in less than 15 minutes.

– When Rudy Fernandez is on a roll like that, it’s something. I’ve said it a thousand times, but you can have all your dunkers in the world, for me the biggest excitement in basketball is when one of these pure shooters gets on a run where the basket looks bigger than the double Jacuzzi in my bedroom. I mean, that three at the end of the third quarter — was there any doubt?

– The officiating sure got better in the second half, didn’t it? Sorry, just kidding. Great to see Joey Crawford in the building for the first time this season. He’s old school but nobody controls a game the way Joey does. Alvin Gentry got banged with a technical foul so fast he didn’t know what hit him.

– You will never, ever see a game again where Greg Oden gets 1 rebound and Joel Przybilla gets 1 rebound. Ever.

– It kind of irks me to hear from so many people how much better Phoenix is now that it’s back playing a running style. What a bunch of BS. Terry Porter was right. This team can’t play that way anymore and it ought to be tightening down on defense. The Suns were giving up tons of open shots last night and that just doesn’t work. Plus, Portland nearly doubled them in fast-break points, 19-10. For the record, Porter had the Suns five games over the .500 mark. Gentry has them three over. And really, if Porter hadn’t slowed the game down early in the season, Steve Nash, Shaq and Grant Hill would all be on crutches by now from trying to play uptempo basketball.

– Portland still gave up a ton of points in the paint — 68. The Blazers aren’t where they need to be on defense yet, by any measurement. The Suns shot 50 percent from the floor.

– Forget about magic numbers. The Blazers are in. The Suns are out.

– Nobody noticed it much, but Nic Batum had another solid game. 10 points, five rebounds and three assists. I watch the kid shoot prior to the game and I can tell you, he’s going to be a very good shot-maker at some point. Right now, he’s not bringing it to the game all the time, but eventually he will.

– Oden had three terrific blocks and continues to find ways to score. Shaq’s a load, but Oden wasn’t afraid.

– Just wondering when Shav Randolph doesn’t dress down for a game like this, rather than Michael Ruffin. Randolph’s actually not bad and is bigger than Ruffin. Just wondering.

– I love how Przybilla stands up to Shaq. Love it. Man, it’s a shame two guys in the NBA can’t even stand nose to nose and tell each other what they think without drawing technical fouls. Good stuff. There’s too many hugs in basketball today and not enough of this stuff.

– Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge were every bit as good as you’d want them to be. When they shoot and rebound well, Portland’s halfway home.

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Whatever problem Scott Skiles seems to have with his players — and I sense sometimes he has problems in that area (or with his front offices) — the guy can coach. I’m telling you, the Milwaukee Bucks played HARD against the Trail Blazers last night. And played pretty smart, too.

The Milwaukee defense was extremely difficult to penetrate for much of the game. Skiles used a lot of overplaying and ball denial to take Portland out of its comfort zone. Eventually, the Blazers were able to launch a lot of three-pointers and on this night, that was a good thing. The shots were going in and that was the difference in the game. Oh, that and Brandon Roy, who had another one of those special games.

It was a very physical game, a playoff-type test for Portland even though the Bucks are probably, with all the injuries, the least-talented team the Blazers will face for the remainder of the season. Again, credit to Skiles for coming up with a game plan that worked most of the night and getting his players to play so hard.

Roy and Steve Blake were the difference makers in this game, with a lot of help from Joel Przybilla. The team’s ball movement is getting much better, although I’d like to see the ball get inside to the post a little more often. (That’s kind of a broken record, isn’t it?).

And by the way, on this night it was Sergio Rodriguez’s turn to ride the merry-go-round that is the Blazers’ backup point guard rotation. He turned it over a few times, missed some assists when teammates blew wide-open shots at the basket but in general, played well considering it’s been three games since he’s been out there. They might as well sign somebody out of the D-League to a 10-day contract just to muddle that position up a little more.

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