Well, to me, this deal is pretty incredible. Once again, the Trail Blazers overpaid for a free agent — front-loading a deal for one who could end up never playing for them. And yes, once again he’s with the Utah Jazz. And I do believe, after much hand wringing, the Jazz will match this offer sheet.

But how would he fit in Portland?

Not bad — if a couple of other things happen. First, Matthews is an outstanding defender with a nice upside. I could see him being very solid as a long-term replacement, should Roy go down with another knee injury. Kid’s got a lot of upside and could someday be a starting two-guard in the NBA.

But in the near term, he’s going to get a lot of money and you don’t give that kind of dough to a guy who isn’t going to play at least a lot of backup minutes. Which, to me, foreshadows other Blazer dealings.

We’ve known since the end of last season that Rudy Fernandez is history. He’s gone. I believe if Matthews ends up  in Portland, it also means Jerryd Bayless will be dealt. We already know Bayless is not a point guard. I figured if he played much this season, it would be as Roy’s backup. But with Matthews on hand, that has to eat into Bayless’s minutes.

I hear from all over that the Blazers are still looking to trade for a point guard. Andre Miller, Bayless and Fernandez would probably be included in that deal — just as they were in the ill-fated trade for Chris Paul.

This is shaping up to be one interesting summer of change.

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A lot of Blazer fans seem to be rooting for the Nets to win the lottery tonight — hoping that New Jersey will win the top pick and take Kentucky freshman John Wall.

The result, they hope, would be for the Nets to want to trade their existing point guard, Devin Harris. To Portland, of course, since he’s a player the Blazers have coveted in the past.

But there are other teams that could benefit Portland, too. Would Minnesota, for example — which took point guards Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio in the first round last year — want another point guard? The Wolves need a LOT of players and would seem to me likely to deal a talented young point guard in a two- or three-for-one trade.

And what about Utah, which holds the Knicks’ pick? The Jazz have Deron Williams and don’t need Wall. What would they take from the Trail Blazers? Or, after the little Paul Millsap affair last year would they deal with Portland at all?

Anyway, realistically what outcome tonight would seem to most benefit Portland? Off hand, I’d say the Nets — since Harris, whose star doesn’t shine quite as bright these days, anyway, is a player Portland wants. And the Nets probably would be more likely to make a deal with the Blazers than division rivals Utah or Minnesota.

But on the other hand… would Minnesota deal Wall? Now THAT guy would bring some star power to Portland, wouldn’t he? Or maybe the Wolves would trade the rights to Rubio?

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I’m hearing a lot about the courage it took for Brandon Roy to take the court Saturday afternoon, eight days after that knee surgery.

Well, yeah… it took courage all right. But I’d have to say, it took a lot more courage for the doctor who gave the green light for it. I mean, Roy is pain free, at least so he says. I’m sure for him, when you don’t hurt, it’s a no-brainer to want to play. But to me, the doctor who is willing to put his reputation — and perhaps his job as the team physician — on the line for this, well, that takes guts. Really, he’s the guy who could have stopped the whole thing. The buck stops at his desk and nobody else’s.

I mean, it hasn’t exactly been a banner season for the team’s medical and training staff. I wouldn’t have blamed him for taking the easy way out and just say no. So way to go, Dr. Don Roberts — and good luck to you!

And by the way, Nic Batum is probably taking a bigger gamble than Roy. He’s playing in serious pain and the point of that right shoulder sits out there for everyone to use as a target. He’s taking a lot of hits on that thing and I think a reinjury is possible. Good luck to him, too.

Taking nothing away from Roy. There’s one thing that’s been overlooked and I give him a ton of credit for it — there are a lot of stars who would not play in that situation because they are risking embarrassment. After all, it had been a couple of weeks for Roy without playing and he was out of shape, physically. He probably knew he wasn’t going to be capable of playing at his best — yet he was willing to do that to help his team.

His mere presence meant so much — and for the people in that building Saturday afternoon, it was a real goose-bump moment.

Moving forward to tonight’s game — I have no idea what to expect because I don’t think that we’ve yet seen both these teams have a good game on the same night. It’s been one or the other so far. If both play well, I have a feeling that the Suns will win, but I’m not entirely convinced.

Folks, if Roy can find his way back to his groove in a hurry, the Blazers have a real shot. And I mean a shot at the NBA Finals. I know that sounds crazy but the West is so balanced right now — the injuries all over the conference have leveled the playing field. Just about any of the eight teams could get to the Finals with a few breaks. It’s one of those crazy seasons where it’s possible. Portland holds the season-series edge over most of the teams it could play.

Except Utah. And the Jazz are incredible. A lot of people give me a bad time about liking Jerry Sloan so much but can you see why? The Jazz system makes that team least vulnerable to major injury of any of the contenders. It’s a plug-and-play deal, with the team executing its flex offense and solid defense in the same manner, no matter who the players are. This team doesn’t rely totally on one-on-one stuff to score, the way the Blazers do. It gets shots from its disciplined, unselfish offense.

On defense, watch how hard it is to get a mismatch against the Jazz. Their defense doesn’t switch the way the Blazers always do. You can’t get them to switch. The defender on the screener jumps out and hedges the man with the ball long enough for his man to get back to him. The weak side is alert enough to help if it must, but most of the time, it’s not needed.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix Suns are getting the Blazers to switch on pick-and-rolls virtually any time they want. Over and over we see LaMarcus Aldridge or Marcus Camby exposed in space trying to defend Steve Nash. This must be dealt with or it’s going to be the difference in the series.

But in this conference, I’m not at all sure what’s going to happen. I know the Nuggets look to be in trouble, but I’d expect — if at all physically possible — George Karl might make a comeback on the Denver bench for Game 5. At least make an appearance at the arena. If that happens, I’d expect a big emotional lift for the Nuggets. It’s an incredible situation in the West with balance like maybe never before.

But I’d be shocked if the West winner has enough to win it all. Cleveland and Orlando have too much for them.

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For me, it all came down Sunday night to that play — and I really shouldn’t call it a “play” because it wasn’t one — where Portland needed a three-point field goal to tie the game in overtime.

The inbounds pass went directly to Brandon Roy, who stood one-on-one against Deron Williams with really no chance of getting off an uncontested three pointer. Yes, he can make threes under duress. He’d even made one to begin the overtime.

But man, if you’re the coach you owe him more than that. Do you realize how difficult it is to get a good three in that situation? Unless your name is Kobe or Lebron, it’s pretty much impossible. Man, there are several things you can do there but the worst is to just inbound directly to Roy.

See, you have only such a small portion of the court to work with when you need a three. And penetration and kicking out to a shooter for a three isn’t going to work — the defense isn’t going to leave someone open.

Run Roy off a pick. And most likely, the Jazz will switch every pick, which would make it even harder to get him open. Put him on the baseline and run him up the lane — at least he can get a defender running at him hard, enabling a ball fake and a possible foul, or at least a more wide-open shot than he got. Better yet, inbound to someone else and let Roy run a little off the ball — if you get a switch from an off-ball screen, at least you probably have a better chance of him getting open against a lesser defender.

My point is, this team continues to use “We need another guy who can get his own shot in the fourth quarter” as a convenient excuse for not coaching. Man, watch the Jazz and see how often they just hand the ball to a player and ask him to beat the defense by himself. It just doesn’t happen.

And watch how easy it is for the good defensive teams — like Boston and Utah in the last two games — to lock in on Portland’s stagnant offense. You’ve got to move the ball and move bodies, which the Blazers so infrequently do, to get good shots.

My goodness, the Jazz had 50 points in the paint. It’s not because they’re handing it to one guy and letting him create his own shot, either. It’s because they pass, cut and move the ball.

Blowing a 25-point lead in the third quarter? It can’t happen unless a lot of things go wrong. Portland made only four of its last 27 shots over the fourth quarter and overtime. The Blazers, including Roy, missed a lot of big free throws.

And Nate McMillan continues to be so stubborn in regard to putting Nic Batum in the starting lineup. What is he waiting for? Batum had 14 points and seven rebounds in the first half. But by the time he made it on the court at the very end of the third quarter, McMillan had managed to cool him off. What kind of crazy stuff is going on here?

It’s already pretty much established that this is a developmental season — the team’s not going to the NBA Finals. So let’s get the kid in the starting lineup, playing with the best players, as much as possible — and get Martell Webster in his likely future role as a sixth man, shooter off the bench.

But at certain times this season I just shake my head. McMillan spent an NBA career as a bench player and he seems so overly concerned with his “second unit.” Man, it seems like a PE class out there some nights as he uses 10 players before the second quarter is over. Is he trying to make sure these guys get their varsity letter?

Seriously, trim that rotation. This season is getting down to the serious games and your team has already lost more home games than any other Western Conference playoff team.

Man, those McMillan-Jerry Sloan matchups are starting to remind me of the McMillan-Rick Adelman matchup we saw in the playoffs last season. And that’s not a pretty sight.

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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?

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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.

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There seems to be a subtle effort in Salt Lake City to portray the Trail Blazers as villains who were just trying to mess with the Jazz when Portland signed Paul Millsap to that offer sheet.

The story by Ross Siler in the Salt Lake Tribune opens with the predictable stuff — about how the guy never wanted to leave, knew he wasn’t going to leave, etc. I mean, what’s a guy who just went off and signed a deal with another team going to say?:

Even if he did sign a four-year, $32 million offer sheet with Portland, Paul Millsap never managed to picture himself playing for the Trail Blazers, even acknowledging the obvious Saturday: “Everything about Utah is a better situation for me and this ball club.”

Hey, a guy ought to be a little nicer to the franchise that ensured him of a very nice contract. Especially for a player who was going to be coming to that team and not even being a starter. But lower in the story, there’s this:

How much interest Portland had in signing Millsap — as opposed to forcing the Jazz to match — remains in question. Millsap revealed that he never talked with Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard or coach Nate McMillan as part of the process.

Come on, let’s get real here. First of all, Pritchard wouldn’t necessarily talk to Millsap when an offer was made. The protocol is to go through the player’s agent. Millsap signed the deal, so what was left for Pritchard or McMillan to do? The rest could wait until they knew they had Millsap on their roster.

Hey, this is big-boy basketball. The guy was a restricted free agent and Portland made him an offer. You’re allowed to do that. Did the Blazers expect Utah to match? I assume they did, but they made the offer as difficult to match as possible.

Now you’re going to somehow try to make it seem like the Blazers were just messing with the Jazz? I wouldn’t spend any more time considering that than I would worrying that Memphis was dinking around with Portland by signing Darius Miles.

Hey, this isn’t Little League. You do what you can within the rules to make your franchise a champion.

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A lot of people are Twittering it, including Ken Berger of CBS Sports. Oh well, not at all unexpected.

So what’s Plan C?

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Ken Berger has an update on the latest about whether Utah will match Portland’s offer sheet. Here’s the part I found amazing:

One interesting aspect of this tale is the fact that Utah is in better financial shape to match Millsap’s signing bonus than was originally assumed. The maximum signing bonus that can be included in an offer sheet is 17.5 percent of the total contract — in this case, $5.6 million. Many NBA teams would have trouble writing a check that big without borrowing the money, but Utah, according to NBA front office sources, isn’t one of them. The team’s only debt is a small amount owed on its arena, so paying Millsap a signing bonus would be “a non-event for them,” according to one of the sources.

Interesting that the Jazz not only have cash lying around that perhaps a whole lot of other teams don’t have, but no great long-term debt. Man, you can win all the titles you want, but among the owners, these guys may be the envy of the entire league.

Berger, like so many others, is painting Portland as being in a bad position with its cap space if it doesn’t get Millsap. I don’t believe that to be the case. I think holding onto it, in this weird economic era, might be a very wise move. You just can’t tell me by January a lot of teams — and there will be several who are also losing a lot of money by then — aren’t going to realize they’re out of the race and want to start dumping the salaries of some very good players.

If you’ve got cap space, you can get one or two of those players. It’s a gamble, yes. But at this point, what isn’t?

UPDATE: It’s being reported in Utah today that the Jazz may get a bank loan to pay Millsap’s bonus and salary. That may or may not mean Berger was correct. Sometimes, for tax purposes or some other reason, people take out loans even when they don’t have to do it.

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Jason Quick has them here. The $10.3 million signing bonus makes it especially tough on the Jazz, of course. I still expect Utah to match, though. But if the Jazz don’t match, Portland gets a very good backup power forward at a yearly salary that’s really not too out of line with his talents.

And don’t forget, Millsap is not only great injury insurance up front, he would be just one more attractive trade piece at the deadline or sometime beyond that.

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