He hit everything. Short jumpers on the baseline. Big time threes. Stop and pop toss-ins from five. Hard drives to the hoop for the foul. One ridiculous jumper that went in after he sold out to get Heinrich to foul him (he missed the free shot, but I hardly noticed). On defense he was hanging as tight in face-to-face coverage as he could, and was as successful as I'd seen him at it. He seemed to relish watching out for shots in the paint that he could smack. It was stunning, all of the good things about Travis condensed into 15 game minutes or so. I still can't quite believe I saw it. But my favorite play Outlaw didn't even score on, nor did he get the assist--but he made the bucket happen. With 7:58 to go and the Blazers suddenly clinging to just an 83-78 lead, Brandon Roy took charge. Taking the ball from the left corner, he drove the baseline and at the last second found Travis all alone behind the arc in the other corner. He dished it to Trav and everyone on the planet watching waited for Outlaw to launch. Except he never did. Without even thinking about it he rifled quickly to Blake, Blake swinging just as quickly to Rudy on the left wing, now completely alone as the Bulls had lost sight of the ball after the first pass. Fernandez drained the three, and it was an eight point game again. The Bulls never got closer, and exactly one minute later when Roy buried a three from Blake deep in the corner to make it 91-78, I wrote at Blazers Edge "game over." Timeout Chicago. Would anyone have begrudged Travis the shot there? Heck no. But he was so on, this night, that he even knew when someone else might have a BETTER shot. So this definitely was Outlaw's game, but two other players, both rookies, also had defining moments for themselves again this season. It's really something you might forget to consider as we watch these young men grow: on most teams there's "the rookie" or maybe there are two but they are at different stages. Our passel of rookies are at different stages too, but all of them seem nearly NBA ready, Bayless being the one most behind. We're lucky to get the chance to watch them all develop at once. When they're all getting a chance in the same game, I get a little involuntary salivation. Bayless is one of the rooks who showed big in limited time, and once again he did more to energize the team with his play, than he did with flashy, raw stats. He scored all right--seven points in nine minutes on 3 of 4 shooting. But it came at a highly propitious time, and seemed to bridge the gap between Oden and Outlaw, when no one else was stepping up consistently. The Blazers quickly built on a rather suprising 49-45 halftime lead, by jumping out in the third on Batum and Blake treys bracketing a jumper by LMA and a big putback jam by Oden. For the rest of the quarter the lead oscillated between seven and 12, getting to seven more than once before bouncing back up through a bucket here and there. But it was clear that the Oden who dominated the 2nd quarter was now getting slowed by an ardent Bulls double team, and so somebody--somebody OTHER than Roy and Aldridge, neither of whom were hitting--had to step up and either take some jumpers or go to the rim. Bayless did it all in his short stretch--he hit a jumper, drove the lane to get the and one, used the body to pick up a foul and get shots which he made, and drew a foul of his own. He started to fall in love with his game for a bit afterwards and his moment passed, but there was a definite lull in the team's energy that no one seemed willing to defibrillate, until Bayless came in. Maybe I find his performance more significant for what it portends--now seemingly a bit sooner rather than later--for Sergio. Are there minutes enough for four point guards? If there are, is Sergio happy getting the sloppy fourths? How soon is it until Bayless is the spark who not only uses high energy, but does it on his own offensive creativity that Rodriguez can't match, and moves ahead of Sergio on the depth chart? Bayless knows that if he maximizes his opportunities now he just may get some chances to run with the 2nd string in Nate's offense this year, which in Nate's offense is a fair number of minutes. And the guy not getting them is going to pile up the DNPs. Can Sergio handle that? We'll see. For now it's a good problem to have. High praise also for Oden. He was beastly tonight. I watched him clock a Bull right on the head with a forearm, carrying a dispassionate stare as he walked down the court past his victim. I realized that Oden had himself realized, "Geez--these guys can't stop me! And when I go "FEE FI FO FUM" the weaker ones don't even touch me!" He's learning to be fierce, and along the way his feet keep getting faster to where no one would call him slow anymore (although he still has a ways to go to be deadly.) Still, in one sequence he took a quick and very short pass from Blake in the paint and dropped it in, all in one beautiful and non-clumsy motion. In that second period though, my goodness. He frightened me, right through the TV screen. (It was HD). Blake collected assists and kickbacks like they were candy, as he just lobbed to Oden and Greg would turn around and plop the biscuit in the basket. It was at that moment I realized that the Blazers are now the type of team that they--until recently--had been intimidated by, and the great majority of teams on their remaining schedule are like the old Blazers. The recent Portland teams were the kind that can play you tough for a while, hang around and maybe even build up a couple of big leads. But the elite teams, the power teams, the ones with players who can impose their will upon you pretty much whenever they want in crunch time--they'll eventually take control and you'll lose your will. That was the Blazers the last two years--the scrappy team with a locker full of Good Effort Trophies because they didn't have the resources when push literally came to shove. This year's team, certainly so in the last two games after completing what they knew was by far the hardest part of their schedule, treated their opponent like they themselves had been treated before. The Blazers became the bullies, the cool and collected team that wasn't fazed by a temporary deficit, as long as their game was working and the shots just not falling. It's the other team that gets excited on the floor now when they think they have a chance at Portland, especially when the Blazers are at home. But even on the road, tonight against Chicago you could tell the Blazers had an air that someone was going to step up, step on their necks and put down the uprising. Having it be Outlaw was a little unexpected, but that's Travis all over. He freely admitted that the three stars, at least Roy and LMA, encouraged Travis to take over the game if he could. And Blake's dropping threes and distributing like mad? There's just too much for other teams to adequately cover. It goes dry at seemingly inopportune times, but the beauty is that nearly everyone has shown the ability to bust up the slump and lead the way for a while. Tonight it was Bayless, Oden and Outlaw. Who will it be on Wednesday on Philly? Tune in... |
RSS Feed: http://www.loadedorygun.net/rss/rss2.xml
