Subscribe Feed (RSS)Some NBA winning streaks are schedule related. I can’t think of a better example than the current Portland streak. It started with a home win over San Antonio — which played the second of back-to-back games on the road, lost Tony Parker to injury in the second quarter and suffered a woeful shooting night from the outside, missing several open threes.
Then it was followed by a win over hapless Minnesota (which lost the following night to Golden State by 41 points!) and Memphis, which has exactly one win for the season.
So look, the Blazers are taking care of business. They’re supposed to win these games and they have. But do you think the high-quality teams in the league get all geeked up about a win streak over the likes of these teams? I don’t.
So enjoy the wins. Not saying you shouldn’t. But don’t get carried away and start thinking all the problems are over. I think you’d want to see a few wins over quality teams before you get too excited.
Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers
Thank you very much Debbie Downer.
Well Blame it on what ever you like, but I have the Blazers with a record of 13-4 through our first 17 games… We shall see, but that ought to calm down our very negative media around here… the sky is falling mentality is getting old
yes the blazers will not win the nba title this year. you are a genius!!!! yes they are on a winning streak. GET OVER YOURSELF CAPTAIN OBVIOUS
i don’t want to hear it? you act like you’re breaking news to us. of course some winning streaks are schedule related. it’s always been like that.
YES JAYNES ALL THE PROBLEMS ARE NOT OVER AND YES JAYNES ITS HARD TO BEAT GOOD TEAMS IN THIS LEAGUE. YOU GOT ANYTHING ELSE FOR ME?
I don’t know anyone geeked up over these wins. It’s nice to see Oden (and some others) progress individually, but I don’t doubt we’d crumble against the lakers or magic right now.
When you haven’t been laid in a while, sometimes you don’t question the quality- just the results…
Real mature comment
I thought it was funny.
you would
I prefer to look more at how the team is playing rather than straight wins and losses. Dwight, you’ve been so negative about this team so far, but they look much better, just by the “eye” test, in the last few games. They gave up 79 points last night to a team averaging nearly 120. Andre Miller looks much more comfortable with everyone, and Greg Oden is dominating games at times.
I’m still not sure what the point of this article is… is 3 games even considered a winning streak anyways?
The point is he tries to find even the smallest thing to be negative about. Nothing is good enough. He is smarter than all. Man it must be tough to live his life, how pathetic.
Dwight you are so determined to be negative….granted good journalism should be objective and fair and speak truth to facts, but lately you seem to be looking for the angle that is suspect or negative. Did we beat 2 not so good team, of course we did, and that’s just what these guys need.
Greg looks a bit better every game on offense, yeah there is the fouls, but are you gonna complain about that all year, c’mon tell us something we dont know.
I doubt we win the whole thing, but hell I’m just glad basketball is back( A whole summer of baseball nearly killed me) and our team is coming together, it so early….pour a drink watch some boats and chill….
but this is his personal blog. He’s not a fanboy and it’s not a newspaper column. It’s a place for his PERSONAL opinion…that’s why you come here afterall, yeah?
Dwight offers all this up for all of our consumption free for the taking…yet people still feel entitled to fill up the comments section critiquing his free product. That, I don’t understand.
This team has work to do but it does appear to be headed in the right direction now. I thought Greg looked good in the second half going up against a solid post player in Gasol. Gasol is looking pretty decent these days and it makes a little sense why they traded away Pau now. Anyway I always like your non sugar coated analysis.
Once again I have to say……….the Blazers looked good in the second half……………..uh wait………I STILL can’t watch the games!
the sky is blue the grass is green
Another way to look at this is the Blazers lost by 3 and 6 points to Denver and Atlanta respectively. Those are hardly blowouts and came against quality competition (combined record of those two teams is currently 11-4). The one stinker loss perhaps was in Houston where the D was basically non-existent. Even then, it was a 3 point difference. So, yes, the winning streak is misleading. But, the losses were hardly disastrous either. Let’s see how the line-up evolves in the coming months before sweating about the W/L’s too much.
Duh…..
I really enjoy this site and your writings, Dwight, but this particular post read like somebody writing a bad Dwight Jaynes parody post.
I hear what Dwight is saying but these last few games are the reason you don’t over-analyze close losses to good teams. I have remained pretty steady all year and acknowledged that its difficult to build momentum with a new rotation when you are playing very physical teams regularly (Denver and Houston x2).
I think the problem here is I felt you (Dwight) were a little too panicked at the start. Its fine to not get too excited at a winning streak against inferior competition but you need to remain even keel both ways here. 5-3 puts you on pace for 51 wins, and if/when you beat Minnesota tonight, you are suddenly on pace for more wins than last year.
We all said that it would take time for this team to get comfortable with each other (introducing Miller and Webster, losing Batum, and incorporating Oden more) so its not earth shattering when we lose to solid teams by a few points because we look lost at times. We can’t preach patience to everyone and flip out at the first sign of adversity.
We just have keep playing teams whose names start with the letter “M” We have won 25 straight against teams starting with the letter M.
Jim
On the other hand, none of the teams who have beaten us are exactly chopped liver.
Kinda like the OSU Beavs football team–sure they have three Ls, but Cincinatti, ‘Zona, and USC are all very good teams.
Too early to make any definite prognoses concerning the team. I’m concerned, but I’m not panicking.
Yet.
Who is getting “geeked out” about wins over a busted Spurs team and Minnesota and Memphis? Who doesn’t acknowledge that the ease of schedule changes and thus, your winning percentage?
Nobody with a serious voice around the Trail Blazers is making this any bigger than it actually is. We get it. You don’t think the Blazers are very good yet. But this post? It’s petty and condescending to your readers.
BODY LANGUAGE……….I decided to study body language…….oh wait…….Jason Quick does that and then we get to read about it on here…………..LOL…….that is why we are not the coach and people write about it and we read about it on the sites like this……….but it is okay in the end. It is all good.
This idea that Blazer fans are too excited about this winning streak is the same argument people make about every fan base. We just had this exact same discussion about the Duck fans being irrational. Its all a myth created by writers who analyze message boards and radio call-in shows. Those two things are simply not scientific ways to poll the beliefs of any segment of the population.
Most fans of the Ducks, Beavers, and Blazers have realistic expectations and can understand when wins and losses are more dictated by the schedule than the performance on the court/field.
It just gets tiring to read writers and hear radio personalities talk about irrational fan expectations, then let crazy callers chime or let anyone with a computer post a message and say “See, they’re crazy!” — It would be the equivalent of The Oregonian posting every single whack job letter they get for their print edition.
You need to separate out the crazy and not give them more say/power than they really have.
amen
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Whether people have realized it or not, the blazer team of last year is long gone.
This is quite a new team where younger players like Oden are emerging and new players to the team like Miller are helping us learn how to become more effective than just one on one in the offensive end.
I am not too concerned nor will be overly excited what happens in November. We are still learning our identity. I don’t think we will really know where this team is at until the beginning of 2010
I’m glad that the Blazers are starting to win these games that they need to, over the likes of Minnesota and Memphis (and, any road win, regardless of the team, has value). Just four years ago, that wasn’t the case. And, we know how much I dislike the Wolves and Grizzlies, even though they are likely candidates to move to Seattle.