What went wrong Tuesday for the Blazers
Well, a whole lot of things went wrong, obviously.
To begin with, not much of it had to do with Greg Oden. I would say when the game was in its meaningful stages, Brandon Roy was as ineffective as I’ve ever seen him. Kobe Bryant had him tied in knots and Roy really didn’t start to score until Bryant was off the floor. LaMarcus Aldridge wasn’t overwhelming, either. Too many jump shots and not enough post-ups. These are the two guys meant to carry this team.
But a lot of the problems at the offensive end had to do with the Blazer system. The Lakers’ defense just completely took Portland out of its halfcourt stuff. A lot of the time, Portland is an isolation team on offense and in this case the Lakers got so much help defense to the point of attack that the Blazers seemed to be playing one-on-three all night.
Good NBA offenses are predicated on moving both the ball and bodies. Movement is essential because 24 seconds isn’t very long when it comes to getting a good shot. If you don’t move the ball and your players, defenses lock in and you get stuffed. That happened a lot of times Tuesday night but it’s a problem a lot of teams can have and it’s usually quickly solved.
The underlying problem is that the Blazers are still way too dependent on outside shooting. They get virtually no fast-break points and not enough points in the paint. Without easy baskets, there’s way too much pressure on the halfcourt offense. Portland simply must quicken its pace and grab some of those easy points that are out there in transition.
On defense, it wasn’t all that bad, particularly when Portland got back in time to choke off the Lakers’ running game. Los Angeles forces an uptempo game and also takes the ball to the basket. At the end of the night, the Lakers usually get better shots than their opponents — it’s why they win a lot of games and why Phil Jackson is probably THE great coach of his generation.
This game was a combination of two things — how good the Lakers are and how overwhelmed by the situation the Trail Blazers were. But these games happen in an 82-game season. The Lakers will do this to a lot of teams. What you do as a pro player is just put that one in the mental trash can. Forget about it. And that’s one thing that’s probably harder for fans than players.
NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | October 29, 2008
Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Kobe Bryant, LaMarcus Aldridge, Los Angeles Lakers, opening night, Portland Trail Blazers
Ouch, very painful to watch the game last night. For me, the bottom line is that this is LMA and Roy’s team, they need to score 20 apiece for us to win, last night they both looked weak.