Blazers Prove Again They Can Beat Phoenix Suns In Regular Season

Just my thoughts,

I think this game goes to prove that we really need J-Rich to win. He had an off night.

Warrick is like Boris Diaw all over again only his contract ain’t that bad, what a relief.

Dragic was bad, he’s been pretty inconsistent too and I’m not sure why. I think Turk has actually played better than him overall this season so far. However, that’s not to say that Dragic’s play has been bad all season. He’s been decent and I think he will get it together. Turk has played well considering his circumstances, but he’s still struggling to find his role with this team.

Dudley’s had a few good games in a row. He must be eating more.

Still impressed with Earl Barron. He sucks offensively more so than Lou and he’s not a great rebounder like we want him to be, but he does do a lot of the small things and he’s actually a good defender.

I’m really liking Channing Frye this year, however he doesn’t rebound well enough for me to be satisfied with him as a starter. Him starting has really hurt our bench, but we kind of have no choice.

It’s still early in the season and I expect inconsistency to continue. It may be a while before we get a 5+game winning streak or win 8 out of 10 games.

Why is it that we can’t beat teams with long, skinny guys?

We out shot them 50.7% to 44.6%. We shot 50% from 3 to their 33.3%. But they shot 97% from the line – 32 out of 33 to our 17-21.
I need to go find my lucky coffee cup.

I FORGOT TO PUT ON MY LUCKY PURPLE SHORTS! we’re 3-0 so far with those shorts

I have seen every Suns game since Nash came. Tonight it was apparent that Nate was going to run Nash to death. He played 3 different men on him full court. He was bumped,tripped,hacked and pushed down. I don’t know how 3 refs. could have let this go on all game. I know the blazers are rough and like to push and shove. This game was took from the Suns. I’d like to see some payback when they come to town late this week.

First… It was a dumb call. Ok… got that off my chest.
Second, it took Frye out of the game… so we had to put BLOU in, killing our offense.
Third, it took away 2 points, and any momentum we had, allowing Portland to run rampant for a few minutes.

Hey Alex, a regular season game played in the current season matters more than a playoff series played in a past season.

I love the style too, integrating animosity right into the write-up after a defeat. It’s currently not clear whether Portland or Phoenix has the better NBA team, but that sure isn’t the case when it comes to the quality of the SB Nation blog.

sure, every now and then, but that doesn’t do it for me… is FO considering any trade? we need to do something, fighting for no8 is pretty boring actually…

ONLY gave up 106 points… that’s better than average amirite

hate. Slow night in Portland I guess.
 When J Rich is off, the Suns can’t afford to have Chill, Dragic and Warrick disappear. They combined for 7 points in 26 minutes.
48 Hours get them again, lets see what the outcome is. 20 some games into the season, a lot of ball left Blazer fans.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/22519/suns-second-unit-not-so-hot

Nicely done Alex.
I was all prepared to come on here and start abusing the poor rotations and distribution of minutes which I felt, thus far, isn’t settled (understandable) and changes on a game by game basis (not so understandable).

But you brought up the valid point that players are getting more burn when guys like Goran and Hakim aren’t bringing their A games.

I know that it takes time for players to feel comfortable with one another and it takes time for players to adapt to new situations, both of which are happening in Phoenix right now, but even if they have an off night, the effort still needs to be there and as you rightly pointed out, 1 P’n’R finish from Hakim shows a lack of aggression.

And what’s the point in having Hedo, Grant and Steve on the floor at once? Hedo and Grant can relieve Steve of ballhandling duties when Goran is off right?

Gentry still needs to find a rotation that is satisfactory and the players need to start finding their form. I’ll give them up until the turn of the year before I start seriously questioning what’s going on.

I know this is only one loss out of our last 4 and as someone (can’t be bothered to go back and check who it was) on the thread last night kept pointing out – we were being negative last night despite the game still being up for grabs – it’s not the loss that matters, but it’s the manner.

Last night sucked for many different reasons. I can only be thankful Jerryd Bayless wasn’t one of them.

Blazers Prove Again They Can Beat Phoenix Suns Without Amare In Regular Season

pressuring Nash all the way to the front court. He just couldn’t optimally working extra hard just bringing the ball up past halfcourt. Just an overall poor outing for the team as you said with Dragic/Warrick/Richardson not showing up in their best. I’ll say it’s a fluke.

+1 to Frye and Dudley for making big shots and stops. Nash, of course, still found a way to be productive in the points and assists categories.

Earl Barron is starting to look like a starter. I was impressed that he actually made his free throws and ability to be a big body in the paint. Most of Alderidge’s points that I noticed were long jumpers that we can live with. It kills me every time I see Barron with an opportunity to slam it in, only to have him fumble it to the defender or do a lazy one handed shot. Definitely needs to improve on some basic post moves although I liked his pick-and-roll reverse layup with Nash.

All the Blazers played a solid game. It wasn’t a lack of talent, or a lack of effort or lack of rebounding – we just had 4 guys who had bad games. I hope that’s out of the way.
     Goran and Turk have a problem co-existing on the floor at the same time, and the problem rests with Goran. When Hedo was starting, and Robin was starting, Goran was great. But his body english is bad, he’s out of sorts, and it needs to be fixed. We need Goran – we don’t need Hedo. I’m not blaming Hedo, at all. This is not his fault. But I think it’s time we do what we have to to get Goran right, even if that means sitting Hedo for a couple.

I know everyone is having a love-fest with Barron, and I also appreciate how he has played efficiently on defense and helped with rebounding. However, he is an offensive liability and has cost us on more than a few possessions; missing easy lay-ups or getting stripped of the ball as soon as he gets his hands on it.

I still believe we are playing Barron too many minutes, and that Hakim would have fared better if he spent more time with the starting unit playing with Nash, Grant, J-Rich, and Frye. Let’s make no mistake about it, regardless of our focus on defense and rebounding, we are primarily an offensive team and if we aren’t scoring baskets, we will have a lot of difficulty playing the kind of hard-nosed defense necessary to beat other teams. I think Warrick islast year’s J-rich, and if we can get around 20pts a night from him we will be a very hard team to beat.

Let’s finish those Gayblazers..!

improving BSOTS

I don’t think Goran likes Hedo wanting the ball so much. I also think Hedo keeps the ball until someone else has to throw up a prayer to beat the shot clock.

what can crawl out of it’s hole when no one is looking!