some of perspectives from blazers' fan The Reality of Game 1 Postby TBpup on Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:23 am There were several matchups or areas that were deemed to be important if Portland were to win the series with the Rockets. After game 1, it seems like there is a lot of work to do. Roy vs. Artest/Battier Roy played pretty well although still is not shooting a very high percentage (10-23). Early on, Brandon was scoring at will off the high pick-n-roll but there just wasn't anything else working. Roy is going to need more help so not as many defenders can collapse on him. Getting just one FT attempt didn't help either. Yao vs Przybilla/Oden Joel wanted Yao 1-on-1 and the old addage, "be careful what you wish for" applies here. We all knew this was a big advantage for Houston but not 9-9 FGs and 6-6 FTs big. Oden played well but didn't spend a lot of time against Yao. I would expect we see more of Greg on Yao in the second game. Blazer bench vs Rocket bench The 38-14 advantage is a lot misleading because it was such a blowout. In the 1st half when Portland needed a run to get back in the game, there was nothing really there. Most of Oden's points were in the 2nd half as were Travis's when the outcome was already decided. Blake vs Brooks One of the perceived advantages for Portland was the youth at PG for the Rockets. You hear that being an excuse for Portland this morning....they are young, that they were a bit intimidated, tentative and not prepared for playoff style basketball but that didn't seem to be an issue for hometown Aaron as he torched the Blazers for gamehighs in points (27) and assists (7). This is part of the reason why so many Blazer fans have felt Portland needs an upgrade at PG. Blake is a nice guy and a solid role player in spots but it was easy to see who created mismatches time after time. So much for youth.. Pace of the game One of my biggest peeves. How many times did we hear Portland was going to push the ball after misses, make Yao run the floor, beat the Rockets up the floor before they could set up their half-court defense? Watching in the RG, it was obvious that old habits die hard and this team still is searching for an identity outside of Charles Barkley's 'jump shooting team' moniker. Early on it was tough to run because Houston didn't miss very often, but when they did, there was no attack, no urgency to get the ball up the court. 5 fast break points isn't going to do it. The few times they attempted to run, the spacing was poor and it looked like Jr. High kids attempted to run a proper break. It is just something that has not been instilled in them and Nate saying now we want to run when we haven't done it all year (30th in pace) is optimistic at best. Officials Different type of game and the Blazers weren't ready. The refs did not cost Portland the game even though there were some horrible calls that brought out one of the louder "These refs suck" chants that I've heard in a while. There were some early non-calls that hurt Portland that might have kept it from getting out of hand quite so soon. Blake was hammered on an early 3-pt attempt and even the ESPN broadcasters took notice. 3 points at that time would have kept Houston from from such an early 9-2 lead. Joel picking up his 3rd foul for standing behind Yao was another head scratcher. Probably the worst was when Travis went up for a jumper, got hit in mid air and landed on his side out of bounds. When that didn't get called, you knew nothing would. It was a blatant miss but didn't cost the Blazers the game, just made it ugly. You watch, the next game will be reffed much more in Portland's favor regardless of the style of play and Blazer fans will wonder where that was in game 1 and Houston fans will complain about the calls just like Blazer fans did for this game. ********************************************************** So yes Portland needs to play harder and hopefully whatever jitters they had will be gone. The reality is, the team that wins game #1 wins the series around 70% of the time and you have to go a bit to find a hometeam that got blown out so badly in game 1 at home. As I've said countless times before, the playoffs are about matchups and Portland just doesn't have many outside of Roy in this series and that one is negated more than usual by Artest/Battier. They are going to have to push the ball to have much of a chance and we've seen how that has worked out this season. I hope Portland can make a series of it and it only takes one road win to recover but the hill is already steep. Usually too much emphasis is put on each game and whomever lost seems like they will not win again. No over reaction here. However, Yao is not getting any shorter, Brooks is still going to cause Blake nightmares, LaMarcus is still not a 'power' forward yet and the Blazers haven't run for most of the year. They have some work to do... Link
