In these last 6 games, we’re 4-2 despite Brandon Roy scoring 20+ only twice.  In Brandon’s first game back (Golden State), he scored 19 while LaMarcus led us with 26 and Travis added 19.  In the next game (Chicago), Outlaw and Oden took the lead with 33 and 17 respectively.  Roy had 11 on 3-13 shooting in that game.

We seemed to relapse breifly against Philadelphia; Roy burst for 27, but got no other help in our 79-100 loss.  Bayless chucked up 10 misses in 11 shots, and nobody other than LaMarcus even scored in double digits.  Bayless would redeem himself with his “announcement” against New Jersey, though, adding 23 points to Roy’s 29 and LaMarcus’s 20.

Against Charlotte (a game in which we lost by 5 despite shooting 16/31 = 51.6% from the freethrow line), we had 6 players score in double digits.  One could argue that Roy actually cost us that game (3/10 FT) – forget our dependence on him.

And finally we have last night; Roy scores 9 on 4/13 shooting, yet we destroy Milwaukee by 17.  Roy was 5th in scoring for the Blazers, following Rudy’s 13, Outlaw’s 18, Aldridge’s 22, and Greg’s 24.

I was excited for the team to benefit from the experience of playing without Roy, but I was not expecting to see these types of results so immediately.  2 of the last 6 games have given us rookie showcases (thank you Jerryd and Greg), while LaMarcus has quietly shot 50+% from the field in four straight games (20+ points in three of those).  For the most part, we really haven’t needed Roy since we lost him to the hammy.  If the other guys can continue to take offensive pressure off of Roy, the end of our season will look dramatically different.  We can finally begin to scale Brandon’s minutes back, which urgently needs to happen – he shouldn’t be on the floor for 37 min/game.

G.O. was another hero tonight.  In only 25 minutes, he had 17 points and 13 rebounds.  Drew Gooden is certainly no Superman, but he’s a seasoned veteran, and Oden man-handled him.  Everything in Greg’s game seems to be improving.  Every game he’s quicker both physically and mentally than he was the game before.  Tonight, he started an offensive move before the pass even got to him – that’s a first.  The result was a quick and easy two-handed flush.  Defensively, he tried to keep his arms up tonight.  He was supurb, but if nothing else it was very apparent that he was being concious of his arms – a victory as far as I’m concerned.

In the only period of offensive stagnation of the second half, Jerryd Bayless decided to create himself some fans.  If you’re not on the bandwagon yet, go ahead and hop on.  It’s going be a fun ride.  Bayless provided the Blazers with some serious offensive punch off of the bench, going for 7 points in only 9 minutes on 3/4 shooting.  This was his 6th straight game with minutes, which is significant because it doubles his previous record.  It seems that McMillan is determined to get Jerryd some playing time each game, even if it’s not in the double digits.  We’ll see if that lasts when Martell starts his comback (in which case Batum loses minutes?).

Joel Przybilla was a total no-show in the game, which should astonish us all.  2 points and 2 rebounds is not what we have come to expect of #10 after his incredible start to the season.  5 fouls in 9 minutes will happen to a big man every once in a while, though.

LaMarcus Aldridge also had a surprisingly quiet night.  While he also had 5 fouls, he did it in 40 minutes on the floor.  In those minutes, he only scored 8 points.  It looked like a pretty good game to me, though – we just didn’t need him tonight.  He only took 8 shots, so I really wouldn’t call it a “bad” night for L.A.; just quiet.  Enough of the other guys stepped up that he really didn’t have to do much.

Roy struggled with his shot tonight (3 of 13).  The hamstring may have been a factor, though after the alley-oop dunk off of the inbound on Saturday, I’m not that concerned about it.  He’ll be back.

Overall, the Blazers got a lot of great play from guys that we really needed it from.  If the role players can carry us through games against these kinds of teams, guys like Roy and Aldridge will be fresher for the really important ones.

P.S.

We shot 30/34 from the freethrow line as a team, which is AWESOME (88%).

Tonight is a great test for Blake.  Rose is insanely quick and, at first thought, should be more than Blake can handle.  However, it’s not possible to be much quicker than CP3, so Blake’s success in that department gives me hope.  Sergio had 3 steals in only 9 minutes last game, but his defense has been very inconsistent all season.  He will undoubtedly check Rose many times throughout the game, and I’m sure Nate McMillan will be watching.  A test like the one that Serg will be put through tonight is exactly what Nate wants to see.  Bayless, on the other hand, can keep up with anybody.  He’ll most likely pick up a bunch of fouls, but those are worth burning if it makes Chicago’s offense feel immobile.  It’s also possible that Bayless doesn’t check Rose that often in the game (if he plays 2-guard) IF he plays at all.  They are the same height (6’3) and Bayless has some bulk on Rose (200 vs 190 lbs), though,  so they’re a great physical matchup that I’d like to see.

All of these guys have one general goal tonight: don’t let Derrick Rose get to the basket.  If he shoots the jumper well, so be it, but you CAN’T let him attack the rim the way he wants to.  He’s too big and strong; he will shoot a high percentage and draw fouls on our big men all day.  They may have to go underneath screens more than they’d like, but any penetration by Derrick Rose is bad penetration (enjoy).

I was watching SportsCenter tonight, and I saw some very interesting statistics after the Celtics/Bobcats highlights: I saw a breakup of certain team statistics during their first 29 games (27-2) and their last 7 (2-5).  The two notable ones for me were their field goal percentages (FG%) and their opponents’ field goal percentages.

But before I get into that, I have to say that it was timely.  I consider two statistics the most fundamental: FG% and +/-, and I had a discussion this evening about the latter (shoutout: Matt, Rob…not Jebner).

No boxscore statistic displays the game in a more raw form than the +/-.  At its simplest, basketball is a team-game of trying to put a ball in your hoop more times than the other team puts it in theirs – the clock will tell you when to stop.  The +/- statistic shows how well the team did at that while you were on the court.

Not so poetically, the boxscore begins at the point totals – the tally of how many times you were able to put the ba… well, you get it.  From the team’s point total, you could consider the point totals of the individual players as the next breakdown, but that doesn’t really say anything about defense.  Similarly, steals and blocks obviously don’t say much about offense.  The +/-, however, quite literally encompasses all of the other statistics by showing the difference in points scored by the team while the player was on the floor.

Now, what’s beautiful about it is also what’s ugly about it: it’s a vague statistic.  The +/- is really no good for use in analyzing a single player in a single game.  It is not expressly indicative of the player’s success or failure; it is that of the team while he was on the court.  It’s much more accurate to look at the statistic as how the TEAM did while he was playing.  A player’s teammates may not have played well, or maybe the other team was hot; there are an infinite amount of reasons why the +/- can send a very different message than the other statistics.  Over time, though, it goes back to the basics.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter many points a player scores or how many blocks they get; the 5 guys on the floor have to score more points than the other 5 guys.

The exact value of the +/- is almost never relevant.  In order for the statistic to accurately reflect its fundamentals, you have to take the limit as n–>infinity (thereby negating the relevance of all other variables), find the gold at the end of the rainbow, and do the Hokey Pokey.  It’s terrifying, so I’ll save you the trouble.  The brilliance of the +/- only comes out when it is considered in trends and over long periods of time.  It’s also very important that the values on one team almost never be compared to those of players on other teams.  This would (and has) result(ed) in seeing most of the starting fives from Boston, L.A., Cleveland, etc. at the top of the list.  Instead, it’s much better for observing how well one team does with certain players in the game.

Field goal percentage is a similarly fundamental statistic to me.  We develop strategies to maximize efficiency on offense and effectiveness on defense; the percentages give us the most general idea of how well those strategies are working.  Of course, fouls, offensive rebounds, and turnovers (among others) can radically change the landscape of the game by providing additional chances for points (I think the fact that the Blazers are stellar in the latter two is a direct reflection of good coaching).  Still, over time, FG% will paint a very clear picture about the strength of an offense or a defense.

So back to Boston…

While Boston was 27-2, they had a FG% of 48.6%.  During that time, their opponents shot 41.4%.  Over the last 7 games (5 losses), the Celtics shot a lower 46.6%, but their opponents shot a similar 41.7%.

I couldn’t help but be amazed that their defense held up so well in a 2 and 5 stretch.  41.7% is something that we can only dream of doing consistently.  It’s that stamp, though – the one that the dynasties have.  Chicago, Detroit, San Antonio, Boston.  I’m a Duck football fan, so I love me some offense.  But defense wins championships.

This drought has only taken the Celtics to back-with-the-pack (their winning percentage is nearly equal to L.A. and Cleveland).  I’m sure that Doc Rivers isn’t sweating much – he’ll just go in to work tomorrow spend some extra time on offense.  I can’t imagine he’d have them doing drills on how to put a hand in a guy’s face when they’re still holding teams to 41% shooting – none that they wouldn’t be doing otherwise, that is.  It must help the soreness of losing that offensive drills are way more fun.

That’s what I want for the Blazers.  We have the slowest offense in the NBA; we get ‘er done with offensive rebounding and taking care of the ball.  We’re clearly trying to play smart, slow basketball.  Right now we’re trying to figure out how to be effective on offense without Roy, but we’re ALWAYS trying to be more effective on defense.  And you can’t love the Blazers without appreciating what the others have done before us!  Kevin Pritchard came out of my favorite one – I’m not ashamed.  I hated Manu because he flopped, but now everybody flops.  I digress…

I look forward to the days where we go 2-5 even though the other teams struggle to efficiently put the ball in the basket.  None of those teams will outlast us in a 7-game series…

Now, Greg is back, but we already have Brandon Roy to depend on.  Well, we did have Brandon Roy.  Now without him, we have to look at these games as an opportunity to develop the other players that we have.  A player like Brandon Roy is the difference between the W or the L, but you need those other guys to bring it if we’re going to put ourselves in good position against the elite teams.  This time is simple – don’t take every game too seriously.  Work on becoming more consistent.  That’s it.

LaMarcus, who had a rough outing against the Hornets, came back with a great one tonight.  His offense needs to expand if he is going to start breaking the 30-point barier.  Tonight, that beautiful high-release turnaround was working for him.  But on nights where the shot isn’t falling, he needs a go-to inside move other than the running right hook.  He needs to develop the threat of going left; if the defender is afraid of him going either way, the hook and the turnarounds will completely open up.  In the mean time, defenders continue to correctly predict that he’ll go right – you can see his workspace in the middle getting smaller and smaller.

Tonight, the shots were falling for LaMarcus, and he was part of a very effective frontcourt for the Blazers.  G.O. wasn’t a total stud, but you can’t argue with getting another 35 minutes under his belt.  And it looked like Bynum was genuinely wornout ALL GAME from working against him.  Greg looks like he is gaining a lot of confidence on offense.  Some of his shots aren’t pretty, but you have to take it game by game.  Right now, I’m happy that I’ve seen how comfortable it can be for him and that he’s wanting to score.  Footwork comes next…

I love everything I’m seeing from Bayless.  I can’t complain about his shot selection when I see him patting himself on the chest and saying “My bad” after a bad attempt.  If he’s still having these problems at the beginning of the season next year, then I’ll be willing to talk more about it.  For now, though, I love to see his head up every time he gets the ball – he’s looking to make plays however he can.  On that wrap-around pass to LaMarcus for the dunk, you could see his eyes locked on LaMarcus like “How can I get him the ball?”  He gets himself caught in the air too often – a mistake that LeBron used to make often.  Must be a super-freak-athlete thing.  In the end, Bayless is trying to be a play-maker for the Blazers, and that’s what we’re looking to develop out of this time without Brandon.  When Brandon is unable to handle the entire load, who is going to be able to provide offense?  Now is the time to find out.

Our backcourt really killed us tonight.  Blake was off all night, and Rudy hasn’t been consistent in quite a while.  Regardless, a loss to the Lakers because we didn’t make our shots is not a bad loss at all.  Blake has generally been brilliant, and Rudy is still very green.  Blakes defense has been tremendous recently, and Rudy’s has come a long way.  Having a player that is so active on the court, both offensively and defensively, is an incredible asset.  He is always filling nooks and crannies around the court that throw the other team off-kilter.  I think these guys have benefited a lot from the experience gained in the last few games without Roy.

Nicolas Batum showed everybody why the Blazers should put him in a contract for a long time.  That length on such an agile frame makes him a really unique talent.  It was certainly a nice surprise to see him get 34 minutes in this game, and he responded with a stellar 17 points on perfect shooting (3/3 3PT), 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 0 turnovers.

The Blazers still kept turnovers low (10 to their 13), had more than twice as many offensive rebounds as the Lakers (15 to their 7), and got ourselves good shots against a good team.  Those shots didn’t fall, and some very frustrating officiating didn’t help.  However, it was good to see us generally out-play the Lakers for most of the game.  These most recent games may have looked very different had we been playing some scrubs, but instead we played Boston, New Orleans, and L.A.

Don’t take any risks with Roy, and welcome the opportunity to develop the players around him.  Just keep playing tough…

28% field goal percentage, 1 of 3 from three-point range this season, 78% freethrow percentage, and half as many turnovers per game as points (imagine if Kobe suffered from this!).

Ouch – the boxscore doesn’t love you Jerryd, but I do.

First things first, I love to watch Jerryd Bayless play defense.  Yes, he’s a little too hand-happy right now.  The guy gets 7 minutes a game – I’d feel like every play needed to be a big one, too.  I guarantee Nate laughs about it; having a freak athlete come in and frustrate the hell out of some crafty veterans is worth 2 fouls in 5 minutes.  As he gains experience, he will learn how to better navigate around screens (he certainly has the athleticism to do so) and where to best place his hands.  What’s impressive is that his athleticism has allowed him to firmly plant himself at the hip of every defensive assignment he’s had, including especially impressive performances against Baron Davis and Ray Allen.  Look at how Jerryd’s hand is lodged into Allen’s wrist… I love it!

It’s all about cultivation.  With Greg, I’m just about ready to slap him on the butt and say “you’re on your own, kid.”  I don’t mean anything about Greg’s evolution as a player; I mean emotionally.  The training wheels are about ready to be taken off – the man is announcing and becoming himself at the same time.  He showed last night that he doesn’t need anybody feeling sorry for him.

But Bayless – now here’s a whole new flower that I get to watch blossom.  You don’t combine the physical gifts, killer instinct, and extreme work ethic of Jerryd Bayless to produce a failure.  And when you merge those attributes with a team-player, you produce a winner.  Jerryd Bayless has shown me that he wants to be a winner.

As far as improving his game is concerned, all you can ask him to do right now is to pay attention to his shot selection.  A rookie doesn’t just “improve” his shot selection like a veteran does; they’re still getting a feel for the game.  You ask that they pay attention to it – recognize good and bad shots – and move on.  Bayless hasn’t even amassed enough minutes to fill two full NBA games!  Clearly he still has an extraordinary amount of growing ahead of him.

What’s more important is that he is buying into philosophy of doing what’s best for the team.  He needs to let go of “what he does,” and try to do whatever puts points on the board, again, for the team.  From what I have seen, he has does an extraordinary job of letting himself be coached.  The only ugly shots I’ve seen him take have been in times when it feels like our offense was stagnant (you can’t blame the guy for trying to create some offense for the team).  He seems to genuinely be trying to run the offense.  We even saw some Brandon plays run for him – high pick-and-pops with LaMarcus.

Oh boy, and aren’t you excited for it to happen?  That stretch of games where he announces to the Blazer fans that he is going to be a serious contributor to this team… man it will be sweet.  He may be a long way away; those kinds of stretches only happen when you get minutes.  We should be mindful of timing, as right now we’re about to enter a period where we find out what the team looks like with Martell.  The other, other, other rookie will get his minutes once we feel comfortable with the main pieces.  But don’t worry – I don’t think Jerryd is going anywhere.  Kevin Pritchard knows these players.  There is no way he circles the boxscore every time Bayless goes 0 for 4 – he must see an already sensational kid who spends all of his time in the gym getting better.

So, maybe we won’t see him much this year.  Maybe we’ll only see him as a defensive stopper on certain types of players, like Batum does.  Or maybe we’ll see him a lot – I don’t know.  I understand that we have other issues to sort through first, and eventually Jerryd Bayless will be given an opportunity to make a real name for himself in the NBA.  When that time comes, I have no doubt that he will take advantage of the opportunity, and I could no be more excited to watch him do it.

P.S.

I do consider his performance in the Summer League a part of his NBA resume.  It is true that you can’t give it too much credit because he was just playing against the scrubs.  However, if you are the Most Valuable Scrub, that says something.  Beating up on all the reserves makes you good – the Summer League makes it difficult to say how good.

Look at this picture.  That’s Brandon Roy in a suit.  Oh hey, Rudy.  Yeah, thanks for running our offense for a while tonight while Brandon was out.  Could LaMarcus have been more clutch?  Steve Blake officially earned rights to my first Blazer jersey.  I haven’t bought one because I didn’t want to commit myself to one player (I don’t have the money for a few), but my AAU number since I was 7 years-old was #2, and he has been absolutely brilliant.  Steve, your time on the Blazers will forever be commemorated in my closet.  Who’s that in the middle of the croud?  There’s Jerryd Bayless.  Do you think he welcomed the spare minutes?

That’s my garbled introduction to what will undoubtedly be my worst post ever.  There’s no way I can organize my thoughts; I want to talk about every play.

Here’re a few thoughts from the boxscore:

-They shot 29 of 31 from the freethrow line (93.5%!).  That’s something we can’t control, and they were exemplary.  Who knows what the game would have looked like if they didn’t have their freethrows to keep themselves in it.

-Almost all of the damage was done by their starters, which means that we outlasted a very deep team.

-We didn’t outplay their stellar defense, as it forced us into 15 turnovers and 45% shooting.

-They shot 40% from the field and 21% from range, which means that a normally efficient offense was uncharacteristically bothered.

-Historically, when we turn into a jump-shooting team we give the ball to Brandon so that he can attack the basket.  Thus, in theory, I would have predicted a heavier reliance on outside shooting without him.  However, we only took 15 three-pointers in the whole game.  This suggests that we spent the game attacking the basket, which we did!  Man, it was awesome…

-13 offensive rebounds by the Blazers compared to 5 by the Celtics; this certainly represents the tone that was set.

Did we just out-muscle the Celtics?  I feel like we just got in a fist fight with the Celtics and won.  It wasn’t pretty, but we made them look sloppy too through excellent defense, hustle, and discipline.  What were we doing with Greg AND Pryz out there at the same time?!  I loved every second of it; why not?  With all the attitude that we brought to this game; with all the upper-cuts that were being thrown, why not put in two heavy hitters?  Jeeze, I’m already off track.

When I heard Roy would not be playing, I was genuinely excited.  The guy destroys his body every game to perform the way he has been, and he’s going to need some nights off.  There is no use in getting worked up over these unless they are long term or recurring issues.  Obviously, the hope is that they are not, but at the same time you have to expect some missed time to heal the bruises.  So, of course, with him out there will be no excuses; Brandon won’t be here to save us tonight.  Who is going to step up? I didn’t know the whole team would answer the call.

As I alluded to before, I am very excited about what Rudy and Blake did for us tonight.  They filled in a backcourt responsibility that could not have been a more ominous assignment.  Rudy didn’t shoot the 3 well, but then again, nobody other than Blake did (Blake: 5 of 7, Rest of Team: 1 of 8).  Seeing Rudy run the “Brandon Position” to begin the game was a lot of fun.  He addressed every concern I had about him attacking the basket almost immediately.  If he can continue to do that consistently, he’s going to get better separation and, thus, better looks at his 3-point shots.

Blake has been the glue that has kept this team in sync for a while now.  If you take away certain freethrows (I vote that we forget about ‘em), he has been downright brilliant this season.

I loved what I saw from Jerryd’s allocation of Roy’s minutes.  The boxscore doesn’t do him justice.  What am I saying?  We just beat the Celtics… WITHOUT ROY.  The Celtics make everybody’s boxscore look bad!  A win against the Celtics gives the team immunity from statistical criticism, in my book.  Anyway, here’s what I love about Jerryd every time I see him: he’s team conscious.  Yes, he took some errant shots, but they were at times when we didn’t have much going and he tried to be a playmaker.  He soared in for what I thought was going to be a layup that he passed out to Blake for a 3, so I think we can see him buying into the coaching.  What we are seeing is him getting used to good and bad shot selection in the NBA.  The important thing is that he seems to be trying to contribute to what the team needs, and with his abilities, we will benefit from that greatly (remember, be patient!).  Tonight, if nothing else, Bayless helped contribute to a team cockiness that had us under the skins of the defending world champs.

I saw Greg Oden tonight; the real one.  First, I saw him clapping – it caught me off-guard.  Later, I saw him run over to give all of his teammates high-fives – my jaw dropped.  Then, it happened.  He smiled, and I trembled.  I would guess that this game will hold a special place in Greg Oden’s heart.  This may be the game remembered as “The One Where It Became Fun Again.”  He wasn’t just smiling about the 6-man thing; he was smiling during the game.  The tingling in my spine from those smiles will resonate for a long time.  Also, for somebody so sensitive, he brought a lot of attitude against the most intimidating of foes.  I guess the ankle isn’t bothering him very much…

I could discuss Aldridge and his encounters with K.G., but I feel like a broken record.  Our whole team had an attitude that I’m still recovering from watching.  L.A. in general was the beast we always hoped he would be.  He stood up to K.G. and delivered some of the crucial knockout punches in crunch time.  What more could you ask for?  We’ve asked a 23-year-old in his third year to become one of the best power forwards in the league, and he’s doing it.

Travis Outlaw was an integral part of our win tonight.  I feel like part of my world got turned upside down.  We played a smart team tonight, and Travis outlaw played well.  He didn’t just score, but he generally played well.  We still got some Travis shots, but we all know that we’ll get those – those are part of who he is.  It’s the composure and scrappiness with which he played tonight that blew me away.  While one game should normally never make or break an opinion on a player, what else are you supposed to with this?  Travis played 31 minutes against Boston and we won.  If your argument is that Travis is a liability because, ultimately, it’s the small mistakes he makes that will cost us championships against the smart teams like Boston (as mine is), then you’re having some internal battles tonight.  It’s like I didn’t think he knew his flashcards well enough, but then when he took the test he aced it.  I’m glad he aced it, but do me one favor: don’t make the argument that we “wouldn’t have beaten Boston without Travis” – don’t take that away from this team.  The whole team earned this, and it was a culmination of outstanding effort by all of the guys that brought us the win.

The talent of the Celtics should not be diminished by their record in in the last week  – we played the same lineup that won the NBA Championship last year.  We still only split the two games we’ve played them, and their win was much worse.  Despite their recent slide of 3 losses in their last 4 games, they are still the standard that we should be measuring ourselves against.  That’s really all this was: a measurement.  The Boston Celtics are in the stratosphere of the basketball elite right now, and we are still learning how to play together.  So, with this in mind, I’ll allow Marc Stein ask the most important question we addressed tonight:

“Anyone else think that the other Blazers are getting a little too reliant on Brandon Roy?”

Yes.  But we just beat the Boston Celtics without him, so I’m willing to bet a few other players are going to start helping him out pretty soon…