This just in — Cleveland’s pretty good
The Blazers missed a ton of easy shots on the inside en route to a 104-98 defeat. Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge were major culprits, missing 27 shots between them. I would say four or five of those were dead-cold layups.
Roy seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding what he was up against. He’d take the ball on clearout and beat his man, only to find one or two more Cavs in his way. Cleveland’s defense does a great job of filling, after one man gets beat. It’s extremely difficult to go 20 feet to the basket against them because their rotation provides a lot of help. Roy, as he matures, will learn on these nights it’s better to get his teammates more involved than beating his head against the brick wall that is this kind of defense.
At the other end, Portland did about as well as you can do with Lebron James. The guy was 14 for 30 from the field. Man, you get him to miss 16 shots you ought to have a great shot to win the game. Problem was, the rest of the Cavaliers were on fire — partly because the Blazers gave them a great many open looks.
I won’t belabor this point because I’m sure a lot of you are tired of hearing it. Greg Oden got only four shots — was two for two from the field after three quarters. Against a team like this, he’s got to get more opportunities than that. He was ignored by teammates several times when he was either open near the rim or had good post-up position.
Oh well, the Cavs are good. I’m just not sure they were going to allow Portland to win that game. And certainly the Blazers are always going to struggle when Roy goes 8 for 23 from the field.
NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | January 21, 2009
Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge, Lebron James, Portland Trail Blazers
They shot better. They created better, and they spaced the floor better
They also got alot of good bounces, but they also took advantage of them. We appeared to be a bit timid until the 4th quarter. Pryzibilla and Oden are the only ones really battling for control of the boards and we need more help in this area. I hope they work on coming out with better energy during the rest of this home stretch
I for one am not tired of hearing you comment on the paltry number of touches Oden gets in a game, I’ve been saying it myself for a couple months. I hate to say it but Brandon seems to look Greg off maybe more than anyone.
I think this is the biggest issue with the team right now, and may be the difference between them taking it to the next level or not.
They need to fix this so I can stop yelling myself hoarse at the TV screen.
Coming off a career game, Oden gets 4 touches and most of them were off of rebounds he was pulling down. There’s no excuse for that especially when the Cavs were without Big Z inside.
The Cavs play good D, but we looked horribly disorganized and unable to execute plays down the stretch. No shame in losing to the Cavs, but this was a winnable game if we played smart ball.
I think Matt and Ozzy hit it on the head pretty well. Cleveland is simply better. Fast forward 2 or 3 years and maybe we are where Cleveland is defensively etc. Missed Ft’s and layups hurt because then it is a whole different game against a really, really good team.
Hi Dwight, As always thanks for your outstanding perspective on all things Blazers. That game was sick and not in a good way. We can play against the best but we don’t believe it. We are that good but our D is crap!
Loose balls always seem to go to the opponent. We never get the big calls (and boy does it bother us). I guess we really DO need a vet out there to keep everybody in the game. I cannot believe how poorly the Blazers shoot some nights and I think they’re a lot “tighter” than they look. Seems like the whole team could stand a little one on one time with the sports psychologist and get back to having fun out there. Props to Joel and Rudy who keep hustling while the other Blazers stand around and stare at James. Get well soon Marty and Steve! Go Blazers!
He (Oden) will get better, be patient…