New Injury: Pat Beverley sprains his knee (UPDATE: Cleared to play Game 2)

It wasn't a dirty screen..it was a foul, but just unfortunate that knees collided. LOF are a disgrace period. Look, Bev is the catalyst for our defense...he is the ONLY guard we have that's above average on that end of the floor....he means a lot to this squad and that goes without saying. If there is a bright side....The Blazers had to have an ALL WORLD performance from Aldridge and Lillard JUST to win by 2 in overtime. Mchale needs to coach better...he DOES. You can't pull players when they are on a roll (Parsons) completely forget about rotation players that could help guard bad match-ups (D-MO can't stop Aldridge, but is he worse than T Jones being a legit 7 footer that's mobile?) And stop telling players to player harder and draw up some legit plays to take advantage of what Portland is weak at. All in all....the Rockets did not play well and almost beat a team who stars had to be ALL WORLD to win. Rockets...handle business and stop BullSh!iting

 

He wasn't the one guarding Aldridge. McHale needs to find a way to stop him and keep Lopez off the boards. I'm not worried about their guards as I am their front court.

 

Perhaps more to the point is who will replace Lin if Lin is to take on Beverley's minutes.

Remember, Lin played 34 minutes last game even with Beverley also playing. Beverley and Lin played many minutes together (and did so effectively). I don't think that Lin is going to take on many more than 34 minutes even as a starter. So, somebody is going to have to fill in those minutes that Lin played.

The obvious candidates are Canaan (backup PG), Garcia and Daniels (backup SG). The team can also go bigger and play a conventional lineup more (either with additional Jones minutes, or actually play DMo some), but the small ball lineup has been more effective.

None of these are ideal choices. I am thinking perhaps the thing to do is just to put Daniels and Canaan in there and ask them to bomb away from the arc.

 

That is the million dollar question. It was not a smart move by Aldridge by any means. I just think he wanted to give Bev a nice clean pop and unfortunately he wasn't set and Bev ended up hurt by it. I don't think it was dirty, just a really dumb and pointless thing for Aldridge to do.

I know he set the pick to free Lillard, but was it needed?

Or did Aldridge do it because Beverley was all over Lillard even though Lillard didn't have the ball?

 

It reminds me of Iman Shumpert.
Knicks fans love his energy when he stopped Rose and Wade in his rookie year.
They called him an elite perimeter defender and pushed him into 1st defensive team.

Tyson Chandler and him are regarded as defensive duo like Howard-Beverley to cover their best scorer ( Harden/Melo) defensive weakness.

P.S. Shump was out (ACL) after his first playoff game against Miami in 11-12

 

It's not that he is not important to the team. We all know he's much better than the other guards defensively. It's that the frontcourt defense is more important in this series.

 

Yes, Daniels please; no Canaan.

 

It's unfortunate Bev might be out of the game, but as a reminder we already have two all-star players making a butt-load of money, so they better bring up their game! It's so funny how people are relying on Bev to save the team. This should be on Harden and Howard!

 

Unfortunately, the way Bev plays, and in tandem with his body type (he is slight to say the least), the guy is going to have a lot of injuries. How many injuries has he had this year? I wouldn't expect next year to be any different. Then on top of that you have other times headhunting...

 

It's not frequent, but that's certainly not the first time I've seen a blindside pick mid court as a team tries to bring it up. In fact teams are sometimes successful in picking up a charge doing it, but in this case LMA was clearly moving.

I think it's kind of cheap, but saying it was on purpose to injure him is ridiculous.

 

Just saw him here at Methodist Hospital. Walking with a limp

 

Still with a limp? Donezo

 

Tryouts for Rockets starting point guard !

Lin gets the start of course. I want to see me some Troy for both the shock factor, ( Blazers don't know his game yet,) and what he might bring to the table. (Especially next year............................................)

Go Rockets !

 

Ironically, Lin will be the most impacted player due to losing beverly. These 2 play great together. Lin has some of his best games playing alongside beverly and played with great chemistry. The small lineup of Bev, Lin, harden, parsons and howard imo is our best.

Harden will lose out big as well. His defense is already lacking and looked exhausted from actually having to play defense yesterday. With 2 dominant defending centers in Asik and Howard, Rockets needs to adjust and funnel. Harden and Lin, or beverly in fact cant stop lillard's penetrations.

 

Nothing dirty about that pick. Would had been a great pick if he didn't get caught moving.

 

Well that sucks there goes the series if Beverly is not playing cause he is the only one who plays real Defense.

 

Well, he has till Wed to get better.

 

I'd assume that Beverly is for sure out Wednesday at the very least. However it certainly appears he is done for the series. Bad blow.

 

Okay, here goes some sacrilege. I'm stupid to post about this game b/c I could not watch it due to long, boring Easter commitments. I would sneak a peak on my phone every five minutes but I could not really watch the game.

And I know I've seen Bev play great D with amazing tenacity in previous games. But the scoreboard doesn't lie, does it? Did Lillard score his 31 points largely not against Bev?

In any case, defense is such a team concept, and that was my whole worry for our team going into the playoffs. You can't snap your fingers and become a championship-caliber defense.

Will still be rooting them home, and I think Harden will have a much better game 2.

 

http://www.nba.com/games/20140420/PORHOU/gameinfo.html?ls=iref:nba:serieshubs:top:modtop#Q1

I just did a quick scan and identified 15 pts he scored when Bev wasn't even on the floor. But that doesn't fit the "overreated defender" narrative, so....