When a win isn't a win

With the new schedule at work I have not been able to listen to or watch the last few Blazer games.  I did catch the last 5 minutes or so of the New York game, but otherwise it has simply been post-game shows. On the bright side, those post-game shows have all been after victories. On the downside, I note a trend among Blazer broadcasters. They are showing disappointment at times over margin of victory. 

The difference between good teams and bad teams has never been margin of victory. Sure, your Boston Celtic type teams will have more big-margin wins than a Minnesota, for example. More importantly, however, is they find a way to win all the games they are supposed to, even when the opponent plays over their head.

There is not an NBA team that is not extremely talented from top to bottom. When you watch pre-game warm-ups, for example, you will see the 12th man on the glorified D-League team the Oklahoma (lack of) Thunder drill shot after shot after shot, demonstrate lateral movement that ordinary people can only dream of, and just generally show in every way, shape and form that he is a superior athlete.

Yet Oklahoma has won 2 games in nineteen attempts. Sure, the players on the Celtics are slightly stronger, faster, better shooters and rebounders, but not so much so that on a great night for Oklahoma where every Celtic has a horrific night, the Thunder could not win.

Yet if teams like Oklahoma have good games for 40 minutes, they will still lose because teams like Boston figure out ways to win. They come up with the big stops, find ways to put the ball in the bucket at the end of the game, and come away with the W. 

By contrast, mediocre teams like New York or Golden State often build leads but find ways to fritter them away and pull defeat out of the jaws of victory. 

And at the end of the day, they find a loss is still a loss just as the winning teams figure out a win is still a win.

Portland is a team moving towards being outstanding. They are winning at home and on the road. They are beating all the teams they should and a couple teams where the outcome might be surprising. However, sometimes that is not enough for their announcers or some fans.

Again and again after the Washington Wizard game I heard the phrase, "Well, they didn't win by as much as you might have expected but it was still a victory."

I would take a certain exception to that phrase. How can you say ahead of time that one team should win by x number of points? There are so many uncertain factors that come into play.

 Will young legs be unprepared for the second night of a back to back after playing New York the night before? Will Washington get jacked up about all the losing, come out and play over their heads all night? Will Brandon Roy see his shot off by just that tiny bit that turns 2 points into a fast break the other way?

One difference between the good teams and the bad ones is that even when they don't get the "expected" margin of victory, they still come away with the victory. It is not as if the game suddenly goes in the loss column after a team wins by less than they expected.

Last year's Memphis game provides an excellent example. Prior to the game, it seemed Portland should win by at least 10 points.  As it turned out, they didn't...they won inside the last second on a bucket that had to be reviewed for about 3 minutes to determine if it beat the buzzer or not. 

While it was not the double digit win that it should have been, it was still a key moment. Portland did not stop winning for quite some time, going on to win their next 12 games after the Memphis win. That last-second bank shot turned around their season.

Mostly, it turned it around because it was a win. Their final record of 41-41 counted it as just one game. If they lost, they would have finished 40-42. Obvious, right? Well, if they had won by 20, they still would have finished 41-41. Unlike the bizarre, Machiavellian machinations of the BCS system, in the NBA a one point win is as good as a 38 point win in the standings.

The main thing is to get that win. It doesn't matter if it is one point or 20, the point is to get the win. When the team has an off-night, whether offensively, defensively, or both, the good teams still find a way to win games against the teams they should beat. 

Right now, Portland is doing that. Sure, in a perfect world they beat both the Wizards and Knicks by double digits, but come playoff time when they are doing the seeding, a pair of wins by a combined 13 points will look just as good to Portland as the 2 wins by a combined 78 they had last week. 

So an open memo to Blazer fans; worry less about margin of victory and more about enjoying the wins. It hasn't been that long since winning seven road games in a season would have been a success, so enjoy winning that many in the first 13 attempts. A win is a win whether by one or one hundred and, far from being a reason to worry, it is a reason to celebrate.

Was the Portland Trailblazers not trading for Shawn Marion a good thing?

In the off season and pre-season, Blazer fans were wildly proposing trades to fill the two biggest problem spots on the Blazer roster. Conventional wisdom held that Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy locked down the Center, Power Forward, and Shooting Guard locations but the Blazers were in big need of help at the Small Forward and Point Guard positions.



One of the most popular names circulating was Shawn Marion. Without bothering to see if it made sense from the Heat point of view, it was assumed Portland could pry him away for essentially the expiring Raef LaFrentz contract and spare change.

For the Blazers, it seemed to make sense. Marion is an excellent wing defender, a great transition scorer, and can drill the three. He would step into the starting line-up, provide them their key defender and some added scoring punch, act as the sinecure "veteran", and fill their second biggest hole.

This would allow Portland to move some combination of Martell Webster, Travis Outlaw, Channing Frye, Sergio Rodriguez and/or Steve Blake to pry loose a premier point guard from some other team.

Just 10 or 12 games into the season it is illuminating to see how much the landscape has changed. Nicolas Batum has been a nice surprise, Webster's injury had the rather ironic impact of whetting fans' appetites for his return, and Marion no longer looks quite the prize he once did.

Suddenly Portland fans are starting to realize what they should have known all along. This team is pretty hard to improve on already. The players mesh very well together and fulfill the roles needed on the current roster.

Webster is an above average long-range shooter who is rumored to have improved his defense. He was showing flashes last year of developing into a better than average wing defender and training camp reports this year had that much improved.

Travis Outlaw has taken a small step back offensively but is improving his defense. He can still create his own shot and at times does a nice job on the boards, though he does disappear occasionally as well.

Batum has been a revelation. His on the ball defense is already good and his help defense at times spectacular. He consistently hits the open jumper and three-ball and is good on the boards. His production is excellent for the time he gets but Portland is just too deep even at Small Forward for him to get more time.

Marion is no longer looked at as a huge upgrade by many Blazer fans. That may not be fair. Marion is still more versatile than any of the Blazer 3s is individually. He is also a better defender. However, he is not so far advanced of what we already see our guys doing that there is still an outcry to get him.

It is amazing what a little patience will do and how it changes the outlook of fans. There are still a few voices trying to get rid of Blake at all costs under the mistaken assumption he is not a good enough point guard for this team when in truth he is a great fit. He doesn't need a lot of touches but he is effective when he gets them. He provides the steady veteran leadership that keeps the team from panicking. He strokes the three pretty well. Sure, his defense is shaky, but then again, name 5 teams that are perfectly set up to defend the Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Devin Harris type of point guard.

I saw one comparison of Blake and Laker guard Derek Fisher. They have similar games and often seem like statistical clones. Yet I don't hear a lot of Laker fans yelling for Fisher to be traded, any more than I heard Bulls fans wanting to unload Ron Harper. I would have to say that style of point, the one that doesn't need the ball in their hands but can score when called upon is pretty effective on teams with guys like Brandon Roy, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. Properly built, that is a better choice than a ball-controlling point guard who has to have it in his hands.

So now that the season is starting to shake out, Blazer fans are starting to realize the move for Marion, while it may have been a good one, would ultimately have had too high a price. There is a reason this team is 9-6 and on its way up. That reason has a lot to do with the players Portland would have had to give up or not play if they acquired Marion.

This is certainly no slight on the Matrix. He is a very good player who helps any team he is on. Can you imagine him in Boston with their current crop? It would be a tough fit at first, but with hi versatility, they would be all but unstoppable. But as good as he is, looking back, the landscape has changed so much that at this point, Blazer fans should be ecstatic that trade was never a realistic possibility.

Sometimes the best moves you make are the ones you don't.

Blazers vs Kings; Can Portland Win Another Nail-Biter?

A few hours before game time we got the news; Greg Oden would make his first home start. Personally, I was a little disappointed. I believe he will be a monster and a key cog in the Blazers' Title runs in the next few years. However, at this moment in time, Joel Przybilla just fits better with the starting line-up.

As an aside, a fan at the stadium had a new nickname for Jole that I like even better than "The Vanilla Gorilla" or "The Thrilla", and that would be Joelzilla. Simply awesome. I hereby demand all references to Joelzilla retroactively be changed to reflect this new name which just might have people going deaf from overexposure to awesomeness.

When Joel starts, the Blazers like to start the game by pounding it inside to LaMarcus Aldridge. LA has really developed a strong post game over the past couple of seasons and this establishes him. It also gets Portland rolling with an inside out game that leads to open perimeter looks for Steve Blake, Nicolas Batum, and Brandon Roy. 

Joelzilla does a tremendous job in this line-up of setting picks and, almost as important, not clogging up the lane for LA or for Roy's drives. Oden, by contrast, too often plants himself down low and simply tries to overpower people. The offense bogs down, he picks up offensive fouls, and low scoring becomes the norm.

On this night, the low scoring did not happen. In the first 6 minute stretch, with Oden and Batum on the floor, the Blazers shot out to 14 points and a small lead. However, Oden did not look comfortable at all.

That is okay because this is a move for the long term. Joelzilla is a very good team guy but may not be the right starting center for a team planning to do damage in the playoffs. It will take time to get the new starting line-up acclimated together and what better time to do it than against a lower echelon team with a marginal inside game?

Early on, it looked like Oden or not, the Blazers were going to blow the Kings off the court. Then something strange happened. The Blazers forgot that Stephen Hawes and Brad Miller are atypical big men who can shoot from distance. And shoot from distance they did.

Over and over we yelled at Blazer defenders stuff like, "This just in. Miller hasn't missed a three this half!" as he bombed in another wide open trey. It was so bad that at one point the Blazer free throw percentage was 64 and the King 3-point percentage was 71. That is not a typo. The Kings, well into the fourth quarter, were shooting over 70% from deep.

That is one way to stay in a game when you are being out-rebounded 48-32, commit 22 turnovers, and give up 24 free throws. Credit the Kings with hanging tough.

And even more, the Kings deserve major credit for the defensive job they did in the last minute. Everyone in the building knew Roy was going to get the ball. But the Kings decided he wasn't. John Salmons played tremendous denial defense, forcing the Blazers to go to Travis Outlaw who mustered only an awkward looking drive that never really had a chance of going in and left the Kings with the last shot in a one point game.

Twice already Portland has had to score on their last possession. Well, three times if you count the Houston game as two. The Spurs got a last shot, but that was in transition with no time to run a play.

This was the first time this year Portland had to play defense against a set play with the game on the line. We know they can score to win games. Can they defend to win games?

Somehow, someway they completely disrupted the Sacramento play and Salmons heaved up a wild, tough shot against some pretty intense defense. There is a reason Portland is 9-6 and the Kings are 5-11; the Blazers finished the game stronger at both ends.

Along the way we had a few awesome moments. Roy added yet another highlight reel, spectacular drive. This one started left of the key with a behind-the back dribble to leave on King in his wake, a spin, a shift around one Kings big man and a layin over the late rotation of a second. Simply gorgeous. 

For the night, we learned a lot of things. We learned that one reason Portland will continue to be successful is because guys accept their roles without complaint, continue to do their job, and pull for each other. We learned that even on an off night offensively, Aldridge can contribute on the boards. We learned that even on nights when the bench struggles (14-34 from the field), Portland is going to win.

I guess you could say we learned Brandon Roy is spectacular...but I suspect most of us already knew that.

I expected Portland to win by double digits. They won by one. In a way, that is disappointing. They should beat even an inspired Kings team running without Francisco Garcia and Kevin Martin by more than one. Then again, in a way it is inspiring. As numerous players said in the post-game interviews, a couple years ago Portland would have lost this game. This time they showed poise, they showed maturity, and did what it took to walk away with the W. Ultimately, that is what it is all about.

Preview:Kings at Blazers

The Kings and Blazers are two teams heading in similar directions. The Kings, once an almost-respectable 5-8 have dropped their last two games, leaving them ahead of only about 7 teams, record-wise. Meanwhile, Portland is 8-6 and just one game off the pace set by Denver.

However, Portland has a tough schedule coming up while Denver looks to having six of their next nine at home and among the road games are teams such as the Clippers, Timberwolves, and Kings. In other words, while Portland is likely to be looking up at Denver by four or five games within the next couple of weeks as the schedule is favorable for Denver to have a big winning streak whereas Portland will be fortunate to go 3-3 in their next six, five of which are on the road in places like Detroit, Toronto and Boston.

That makes the home game against the Kings into a key game. Portland is coming off a disappointing performance in Phoenix. Defensively, the Blazers performed very well and did everything they needed in order to have a chance to win. Unfortunately, the offense disappeared.

Part of that can certainly be credited to the improved Suns defense. How much of it is credited to their defense as opposed to how much of it is credited to Phoenix being in the Blazers' collective psyche is an open question.

In the first half, Portland was raining open threes at the basket from all angles. Typically reliable shooters like Steve Blake and Rudy Fernandez had multiple looks so wide open that not only were the shots uncontested, there was not even a defender within five feet of the shooters. They combined to miss every open look.

Portland let the Suns off the hook. Had they hit the shots they normally hit, Portland would have been up by 10 - 15 points. The offensive explosion of the third quarter would not have mattered so much.

The Suns are much too good to not take advantage of such a gift. They took advantage and won a game that Portland had a very real shot at. That makes it perhaps even more unlikely that Portland will break through in Phoenix this year and also had adverse affects on the outlook of Greg Oden.

His match-up with Shaquille O'Neal drew a lot of attention. Frankly, Oden was not ready for it. He was called for some pretty questionable calls, particularly in light of the nonsense O'Neal gets away with. As typical for him, he got off a couple of cheap shots that would have gotten someone like Ron Artest of Stephen Jackson a multi-game suspension, but in his case only one of them even drew a foul call and a technical.

If I ever get around to it, I would love to write a piece about the dirtiest players in the League: guys who regularly take cheap shots, commit vicious fouls akin to unnecessary roughness type things, or just hack and grab. A front line of O'Neal, Tyson Chandler and Bruce Bowen, teamed with Rip Hamilton would be a pretty good start.

The difference between the Bowen/Hamilton type players and the O'Neal/Chandler ones is the first group do their work with their hands, primarily to keep their opponent from getting position or scoring well. The second group I have watched time and again throw elbows or other shots clearly designed to injure. I was shocked the first time I saw Chandler play live and saw all his after-the-whistle work away from the ball. He does not get noticed because he does it away from the play but I instantly put him on my list and watching him since, he is second only to O'Neal.

O'Neal of course has well-publicized tendencies in that regard which are passed off by his fans and defenders as, "Well, he gets fouled all the time." Uh, right. There is no difference between say...someone getting run over by a tank reaching around and trying to strip the ball, getting called for a foul, and the actions of O'Neal against Joel Przybilla.

Last year after he knocked Przybilla to the floor, O'Neal "tripped" and deliberately moved the ball, trying to drive it into Joel's face with all O'Neal's weight behind it. It was deliberate, malicious, and should have earned a long, long suspension. In the most recent game he again took an after the whistle shot that could easily have been construed as a punch. This one at least earned him a technical, but it also allowed him to grow ever more violent as the game progressed without further fouls being called.

I look forward to the day when, after his basketball career, he gets in the ring with guys who think like he does...Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, Brock Lesnar...and we see how he does without the referees allowing him almost complete carte blanche.

But back to Oden; after the game, it was clear he knew he had performed poorly. He struggled to score and, more importantly, did not rebound or defend well. Portland will be just fine if he does not score a great deal but they desperately need strong performances defensively and on the boards from Oden if they intend to compete against the better NBA teams.

How will Oden respond to it? The Kings game might provide one answer. The answer has to do much more with Oden than it does the Kings. Physically, the Kings are way over-matched. Oden can gain position almost at will against guys like Brad Miller, Spencer Hawes and Mikki Moore.

The Kings big men play a different game, more inclined to snipe from mid or long range than they are to mix it up under the basket. They are the type of players Oden should put up fairly nice numbers against...if his head is in the game. If not, he could skip his rotation, be drawn to the perimeter where the Kings can use their superior speed and agility, and he could end up in foul trouble.

So item #1 on the Blazers agenda is making sure Oden is able to put the Phoenix game behind him. Everyone has bad games. The good players have bad memories and go out to play the game in front of them instead of worrying about yesterday's news. We do not know how Oden will react to that yet.

Item #2 is winning the games they should win. Home games against the Kings are definitely a game they should win. Even if Sacramento comes in with a chip on their shoulder after the beat-down Portland laid on them last week, Portland should win this game and win it handily.

They have a better inside game than the Kings, they have a better outside game, and better defense. For the Kings to win, they have to play well over their normal game while limiting the Blazers to playing a very poor game.

In the NBA, that is always a possibility but not a probability. Portland should follow the same formula they used in the second half at Sacramento. Start the ball inside and either let LaMarcus Aldridge go to work in the post or, if he is double-teamed, rotate the ball to the open shooter on the perimeter for the easy look at the three-ball.

This game should be a good confidence booster for Portland after the rough Suns game and give them a nice boost before heading on the road for their second long East Coast trip of the year. Look for a double digit win and some free chalupas for the crowd.

And lots of chances to do the "Thrilla" dance every time Przybilla dunks or blocks a shot.

Does the Road game against the Kings hold the Key to the Blazers Season?

Sitting at 7-5 is hardly an enviable position. Even worse, after an extended 5 game road trip that ended with a home game on the back end of a back to back, Portland is now back on the road for another back to back. This time both games are on the road, first against Sacramento and then against Phoenix.

In their last road game, Portland turned in a disappointing performance against Golden State and gave up a win they probably should have had, thus effectively canceling out their somewhat surprising win in Orlando a few nights prior.

It also pointed up to the difference between Portland and the teams they are looking up at. The Celtics and Lakers habitually close out the games they are supposed to close out and put them in the W column. Their win totals grow regularly and when they lose it is a bit surprising. You seldom see the top teams of the League lose to the Memphis or Clipper type franchises.

Portland has the talent to be that type of team. What they do not have is the killer instinct. They often go into games and, as Brandon Roy has admitted in interviews, let teams get off to good starts and into great rhythms.

Portland needs to learn how to impose their will on opposing teams. They need more nights like they had against Chicago where they spend the first 5 minutes establishing they are the better team and the next 43 minutes drilling that into the heads of their opponents. They need teams to know going in they will have to scrap and battle for every point and will need to go above and beyond to slow the Blazer offensive attack.

With that in mind, a quick look at the two games ahead is illuminating. Looking at them in reverse, the second game is currently the 2000 pound gorilla. Phoenix is a team the Brandon Roy era Blazers have never defeated. Not in Phoenix. Not in Portland.

Furthermore, in the last couple of games Shaquille O'Neal has wrecked Joel Przybilla, scoring and rebounding seemingly at will. Steve Nash also does a number on Steve Blake while Raja Bell often does an above average job on Roy.

Synergize those things with the back to back, the fact it will be their 7th road game in their last 8 outings, and suddenly you have a game that looks very, very imposing.

On the other hand, Phoenix and most of the Western Conference are looking vulnerable this year. San Antonio and Dallas are below .500. Phoenix has lost 3 home games in 6 tries. Houston is struggling with injuries and integrating Ron Artest into the offense. Utah is waiting for their star point guard to return. Denver made what some took as a panic trade.

As of the moment, at 7-5, Portland is in 6th place in the Western Conference. They are only 3 games away from first place. If they can get on a big run, they could actually be a legitimate, serious threat to make a move towards the 3rd seed or perhaps even the second seed.

But to do that, they will have to win some games such as the Suns game. Phoenix is struggling to adjust to their new mind set and playing style, they have had some mild chirping at Coach Terry Porter in the media, and are not yet the dominating team they will probably be by the end of the year.

More importantly, games against teams like the Kings are games Portland has to win. They need to go into Sacramento and establish their dominance early. The Kings are struggling with injuries and trying to get their young core used to playing together. They have been boosted by some surprisingly good games by John Salmons and other guys have stepped up, keeping them respectable at 5-8.

But they can't stay with Portland. Top to bottom, Portland is a better team. They need to make sure the Kings know that. They need to come out early, put together a nice offensive stretch and show the same defensive intensity they did against Chicago.

Portland is on the cusp of becoming a top-tier team. They are showing that by doing well with a difficult schedule. They are playing the games put in front of them and winning the games they should, Golden State excepted.

Beating the Kings is the next step. The Blazers need to win a conference game against a below average team. Furthermore, they need to do it in convincing fashion. Then they can take the momentum of their last two performances into Phoenix and maybe win that game.

At this point it is all about attitude. The Blazers need to develop the same attitude the Lakers, Celtics, Cavaliers, and Pistons have; every game belongs to them and is theirs to lose. They have to believe going in that they are the better team. They need to know that on nights they play their game they will like the scoreboard results.

It all starts with winning the games you should win. The Kings game is one they should win. Going 3 games over .500 would be huge. After Phoenix they have a nice break in the schedule with 3 home games against Sacramento, Miami, and New Orleans. Winning against the Kings would be a nice confidence boost going into the Suns game and give Portland their best chance to win what is surprisingly a winnable game.

Assuming the Suns win at home, that still leaves Portland 4 of their next 5 games that should be wins. If they can be sitting at 11-6 when they take off on the subsequent 5 game road trip, they will be well set up for the rest of the season. They will know they can win at home and on the road. They will have beaten the good teams and the bad teams. They will know they can establish their will and show teams it will be an uphill battle all night.

Conversely, if they lose to the Kings it will make the Phoenix game exponentially more difficult to win. Having a 2 game losing streak might sap some player confidence. Their next game with a quality team is against the Hornets on get-away day. Suddenly that becomes a trap game.

Should Portland stumble against the Hornets, that 5 game trip gets even tougher. Knowing you will face Detroit, Boston and Toronto on the road can turn games like the New York and Washington games into desperation moments. Suddenly instead of a nice record, Portland might be looking at being around .500.

That is what is at stake against the Kings. Does a win against them guarantee a sweep of the home stand and good road trip? Of course not, any more than a loss guarantees future troubles. It does, however, speak to the identity the team develops as far as showing they are a force to be reckoned with.

The NBA players know which teams are good and which ones aren't. The confidence level of teams going in to games with Boston is generally not high whether the games are home or away. Portland needs to start developing that same reputation; the team you know will probably beat you. It starts with a win in Sacramento.

Blazers, Warriors, and Bulls; Runs are the difference

When Golden State ran out to an early lead and my wife got worried, I replied, "If there is one team in the lead you don't worry about when they get an early lead, it is New York. But if there are two, the second one is Golden State. They will give it all back. We might not win, but we won't get blown out."

There are also teams you definitely do not want to let get out to early double digit leads because they won't let you down. That would be teams like the Celtics, Lakers, and Spurs. In between those extremes are the rest of the league, teams that some nights will give up early leads and other nights will extend them.

To this point, Portland in the last season and a half has tended more towards the former; they gave up a huge lead against Philadelphia early last year that threatened to derail their season. Conversely, they also came back after seeing other teams run out early on.

Against Golden State, both teams had some nice runs but nothing the opposition could not recover from. Ultimately in a hard-fought contest, the Warriors made more plays down the stretch.

Against Chicago, Portland wanted and needed to show they were going to get an early lead and not going to give it up.

It was obvious early the Bulls were not going to get back in this game. When they pulled within about twenty, Coach Nate McMillan took a time-out and instantly the lead ballooned back past the thirty point mark. It is things like that which mattered in this game. Well, those and the Bulls basically quitting.

At one point some Bull made what vaguely appeared to make an entry pass. It would have been more effective if Joakim Noah either A) established position or B) did not have his back to the passer.

Since Noah never saw the pass, there was a defender between passer and intended recipient, and Noah was completely over matched, there was no surprise when the ball rocketed out of bounds untouched. The Blazers ran up court. The Bulls stood there glaring at each other, yipping about whose fault it was.

The Bulls are a team in disarray. At least, they were on this night. They don't play as a team, they don't maximize the talents of their players and don't mask their holes. As a result, when things went poorly early, they never looked like any threat at all.

In many ways, this was a forgettable game. Portland shot out to a 16-3 lead with the Bulls points coming on I believe a Defensive 3 second call and a bad turnover that led to a break-away. In fact, 4 of the first 7 Bulls points came that way.

But Portland did not panic. They continued to play stifling defense, pound the ball inside, rebound, and demonstrate this is a new era in Blazers history. For a couple of years now, the Blazers have been capable of building respectable leads but have not been able to maintain or extend those leads. That is no longer true.

The starters built the lead, the reserves extended it. At one point the Blazer line-up had Greg Oden, Channing Frye, Travis Outlaw, Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez on the floor. That is a line-up that could go .500 for the season and has potential All-Stars some day in Oden, Outlaw and Fernandez. And they are all second-unit.

Sure, at some point Oden will probably return to the starting line-up. Sure, Outlaw has not looked his best yet this season. But if you put this line-up on the floor night in and night out to start games, they will put up numbers and win games. They can score inside with Oden, Outlaw, and Fernandez. They can score from deep with any of them but Oden. Rodriguez and Fernandez are above average at getting into the lane and Outlaw is no slouch.

AND THIS WAS THE SECOND UNIT.

That is one reason that, although before the season started I actually predicted their record at this point in the season to be 7-5, I am actually a bit disappointed. Sure, the schedule has been brutal to a historical degree, and will continue to be so for a little while, but Portland has the talent to beat any team on any night and should win far more than they lose.

Their starting line-up is well-suited to contend with any team. They can score from inside or out, they have good wing and interior defenders, and they have strong leadership in Brandon Roy and Coach Nate McMillan.

That has led to the development we have seen. Last season they won a few games nobody believed they could but even at their best, every game was a battle. This year they have the potential to have a few blow-out wins. Certainly there is no night where they should not at least have a chance to win.

It is great as a Blazer fan to see that progression. It is exciting knowing that the Blazers have road games they should expect to win. This weekend is a good example. Friday the Blazers visit Sacramento and then Saturday they are in Phoenix.

Last season, that meant they could win against the Kings but would most likely get rolled by the Suns. This year, it means they SHOULD win against the Kings and have a pretty good chance against Phoenix, though ultimately they may not yet be ready to get that gorilla off their back.

Ultimately, if the NBA is a game of runs as is often asserted, the team that does the best job of withstanding the opponent's runs while maximizing their own will have the best long-term success. Based on the Warriors and Bulls games, the Blazers look to have lots of it in the near future.

Reviewing the Hornets game and previewing the Minnesota game

The Blazers bench looked to be the big advantage Portland had over the Hornets. Rudy Fernandez and Travis Outlaw have both played exceptionally well in the first two games of the road trip. Against New Orleans, however, they combined to go 3-10 from the field for 13 points. Even on a night where Greg Oden showed flashes of what we have been told he can do, that simply is not good enough against a team the caliber of the Hornets.

Even with the essential no-show by their bench studs, Portland was down but one at 77-76 with 2:39 to go. Losing by 5 to New Orleans in New Orleans is hardly embarrassing. And for Fernandez, it is good for the fans to remember he is A) a Rookie and B) human. He will be back and have lots of good nights to go with a few nights like this one.

But the most encouraging thing to come out of the game was seeing "the real Oden". Again and again people who have seen him in practice talk about his speed, his agility, his leaping ability and his explosiveness.

Unfortunately, in games we have not seen that. We have seen a tentative young man, afraid to plant, afraid to jump, afraid to extend. Many fans have expressed disappointment, a position I believe is somewhat unfair. Oden is only 20, too young for that much pressure to be put on him. He should be the guy with the grin cracking his face, enjoying the ride, not wondering if he is letting a city down. He isn't. Give him time and he will be fine.

Well, finally we see a snippet. Watch this block. He comes out of nowhere, gets incredible extension, has unbelievable timing, leaping ability, and explosion. This was a jaw-dropping moment for me.

I remember watching Jerome Kersey chase guys down from behind to block break-away dunk attempts. I have seen Joel Przybilla block dunks, block Yao Ming...okay, less impressive when you remember seeing 5'9" Nate Robinson blocked Ming... but the point is, I have seen a lot of impressive shot-blocks. One of my favorite memories from last season was Outlaw blocking two shots in about a 4 second span. 

This Oden block ranks with any of those. It was so unexpected and showed so much athleticism that suddenly I saw what everyone was talking about. This is a game-changing player. This is a guy who can dominate the paint on both ends of the floor even if no plays are ever run for him. This is a guy who can single-handed lower opponent's shooting percentages 2 or 3 points and keep them out of the paint. This Oden is IMPRESSIVE.

Again, as I said about Fernandez, Oden is young. He is still a rookie and still has a lot of lessons to learn. He will have a lot of bad nights but he will have some nights like this, too where he owns the paint and makes a huge difference just by his presence. 

It was exciting to see. It was a great moment even in a loss.

Tonight against Minnesota, it will be interesting to see if Oden plays. The Blazers are taking it very easy on him, for obvious reasons. No reason to push things so I expect Portland will play without him tonight.

That should mean a few minutes more for Nicolas Batum who was the odd man out last night, though I doubt he will be in the game for much over 20 minutes. Then again, after Brandon Roy going for 42 minutes and LaMarcus Aldridge for almost 40, the bench can expect more minutes overall. Hopefully they are more effective.

Tonight they will be needed to score a bit more. 82 points is not going to win many games. Fernandex and Outlaw need to score 30-40 points between them tonight with Channing Frye adding 8-10. 

They will need to keep Al Jefferson out of the paint and slow volume-shooting Randy Foye without giving Mike Miller a lot of open looks from deep if they want to win. 

They need to win this game. Winning in Orlando was a big win, one that arguably was an upset win. Losing in Minnesota would off-set that and be a big step backwards. Teams like Minnesota are the ones Portland needs to dominate and win moost if not all the games against, whether at home or on the road. 

Portland has the talent to outscore the Timberwolves and be somewhat stifling on the defensive end. They should dominate the boards and if they control the ball, they should walk away with an easy victory.

Of course, they also should have beaten Minnesota handily in Portland and that game required some late-game Roy heroics before they pulled it out. That can be taken one of two ways; either A)  the T-Wolves will believe they can play with Portland, will use that confidence and play over their heads, or B) Portland will use it as motivation to show the T-Wolves who Portland really is.

It should be an entertaining game that Portland walks away from with a win.