Portland Trail Bloggers

1) The rotation. Sergio out, Blake in. Blake out, Rudy in. Bayless, Frye in, Outlaw, Roy out. Bayless out, Roy back in. Last night was a real head-scratcher in terms of the rotation. If this team is going to be successful i.e. playoffs, then they are going to need definitive roles. Bringing me to my next point…

2) Has Sergio surpassed Blake? His PT has risen dramatically since the “He wants a trade” comment from his Spanish agent a few weeks ago but has his play really raised that much to warrant such an increase? Although that rebuilt shot makes it prettier to watch, it’s still missing more than making. He’s hitting 33% of his threes while Blake is at a more respectable 40%. With Oden taking Pryzbilla’s minutes (and rightfully so) and playing most of the final period, there’s more chances for trey-bombs now than ever. The D collapses on the redshirt rookie and he’s doing an okay job at kicking it out. Now would you rather have Blake firing away or Spanish Chocolate?

Sergio still is dribbling too much. He’s gotten better at getting the team into the offense and gone are the possessions where he dribbles away the bulk of the shot clock. But he can’t slide over to the off-guard spot like Blake can/does in the 4th when Roy needs the ball. Last night down the stretch run when we had several chances to come back, it was Sergio running the offense not Roy. I’m not blaming Sergio at all but this team has proven that in the fourth, during close games, Brandon Roy is the best point guard on the team. Why wasn’t he doing it as much last night?

3) LaMarcus Aldridge. I’m not sure if you heard but yesterday was the NBA’s official “Let’s call as many offensive fouls as we can on power forwards from Texas Day.” Okay. It wasn’t. But it certainly seemed that way. At least three of LA’s six fouls were offensive. Corey Maggette is listed at 225 pounds just 15 lighter than Aldridge but last night he was going down faster than Kimbo Slice in that fight a month or so ago. Despite the trouble from the refs, LA has got to find a way to get it going. He hasn’t had a real good game since Nov. 8 against Minnesota when he went for 24 and 13. He’ll turn it around but sooner would be better than later.

4) Kudos to the Warriors for taking advantage of the officials and getting the calls all night. They excelled at that. Every loose ball foul was against the Blazers. The obvious one is the last one when Rudy was called for holding Anthony Morrow (who’s the steal of the draft, oh wait he wasn’t even in the draft) despite a stretched out jersey and a bright red scratch mark on his chest. And there were lots of others that went the G-State’s way. McMillan said after the game that Portland hasn’t done anything to get the benefit of the doubt from the refs and he’s right. We in Portland know the team as a fun, friendly, great bunch of guys but who knows? Perhaps the refs think they are dastardly pirates who pillage local villages when there’s not a game or practice. I don’t know, it was just tough to watch last night because you knew whenever the whistle was blown, the ensuing call was definitely going against the away team.

5) ODEN. Finally, something fun to talk about. The good news: He didn’t get hurt and he went for 22 and 10. And the Warriors arena maintenance people are probably glad he didn’t pull down the shot clock on any of his equally thunderous dunks. He had good hands catching lots of passes from Roy in traffic before going up for a shot that looks so much better than it did this time last week. Then of course there’s the defense. He had a couple of blocks, altered more and was diving on the floor for loose balls.

Unfortunately, there’s some bad news. His plus minus was -11 meaning the team lost 11 points when Greg was in the game. His counterpart Joel Przybilla was +10 tied for tops in the game. Granted, plus minus is one of those less conventional statistics that is hit or miss sometimes so take this one as you like it. The team though, did looked clogged when Oden was in there. It wasn’t as bad as the Laker game but there a bunch of possessions with lots of people standing around. That’s not the best way to use him right now. He doesn’t have the back-to-the-basket skills yet. He still shuffles his feet on pump fakes when he knows a big dunk is imminent. He looked the best coming off of pick and rolls with Roy although it takes him about three hours to roll towards the hoop. But when he does, man, watch out. He’s got rookie stuff to work on like keeping the ball high when he’s going through traffic. If he keeps the ball up, there will be less and less nights of five turnovers from Mr. Oden. Still, despite all that 22 and 10, playing 30 minutes, not getting hurt, pretty exciting.