You gotta have your head examined if you felt dumbfounded and angry about the Blazers getting convincingly thunked at Staples Center again (doing a doubleheader with the Blazers' next opponent--Detroit beating the Clippers earlier in the day). With Brandon Roy, they got smoked the first night of the season, and while they're by no means the same squad they might not even be as good as that night without him.
So I could have written that "Blazers lose to Lakers as Bryant leads fourth quarter blowout" and been right 90% of the time, and it wouldn't have been that hard a prediction. I might have said that that L*kers just buried them in shots and ran past 100 as nobody was contested. Inside the Blazers had serious foul trouble and the L*kers--particularly Kobe--went to the line a zillion times.
And I'd have been right in several ways. But in other ways, for at least the opening third of this game, the Blazers were well within their capacity to put up a sizable lead beyond the ones they had. And well into the third quarter, while they were shaky and going through a cold stretch they could have stayed easily competitive. After that it fell apart like an Indian scooter. (Trust me, they're the K Cars of scooters, with shadier parts places).
So it's instructive to see where the weaknesses remain--Rudy has lost his shot and doesn't know where in the world it has gone, Travis has it sometimes, doesn't at others, and doesn't rightly seem to care which it is on any given night for all it will change his game...and he'll throw in the standing around and not getting out on D for free. Bayless is like Sergio two years ago, Blake can pass and drive but he can't calm the team. Etc. etc. etc.
But let's focus instead on another game where but for simply average rather than crushingly poor shooting, especially from distance, the Blazers played an elite team awfully tough. For much of the first half I saw Kobe having to work a little, and not liking it. Some of the other players started bitching as well. Have you noticed that the top teams all start to whine when stuff doesn't go right for them in the first half, and by the second half the stuff they were complaining about seems to go away?
They played a really kick-ass first quarter. Let's look at that instead.
Call it the StS Truthy Animal Story for this week: Steven Colbert has been sighted in Oregon.
Well, okay--strictly speaking, it's Steven Jr., the bald eagle named after Colbert, raised at the San Diego Zoo where it was hatched in April 2006, and released into the wild the following June.
Jack Noller isn't the kind of guy who spends his days stalking celebrities.
But one sort of fall in his lap when he was photographing bald eagles at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge the day before Christmas.
He spotted an eagle with a tag and e-mailed his photos to Charlotte Anne Kisling of Dorris, a well-known area birder.
She checked around and learned that A-46 is actually Stephen, Jr., whom she calls the world's most famous bald eagle.
"I've been waiting 2 1/2 years to see this eagle," said Kisling, who finally did so on Christmas Day. "I just knew eventually it would show up here." [...]
The GPS unit tracked Stephen, Jr. from California through Oregon and Washington to British Columbia and back south. Tracking data available on the Internet indicates that Stephen, Jr. might have previously visited the Klamath Basin.
Here's a history of Steven Jr.'s adventurous life so far, in clips from "The Colbert Report:"
Welcome back to Oregon, Steven Jr.!
You can interactively track Steven Jr.'s travels at the non-profit Institute for Wildlife Studies site, although their most recent logged sighting is last October. (I like to think the delay is the IWS's passive-aggressive response to the fact that it takes silliness like naming an eagle after Colbert to make America pay attention to its at-risk species like the bald eagle.)
Tomorrow night, "The Colbert Report" (and "The Daily Show") will return from the holiday hiatus with new episodes; tune in to see if Steven Jr.'s visit to Oregon gets any air time.
Tomorrow starts the first regular Monday @730 AM for me on KPOJ's Morning Show with Carl Wolfson and Friends, on your AM dial at 620, or via the web directly here or on your Iphone/3G/ITouch using the IHeartRadio app. That's Carl on the left, producer Paul Pimentel on the right and national writer and radio personality Thom Hartmann--who sometimes stops by during the 8AM hour--in the middle. I'll update the picture when they add me in (cough).
For the first edition of 2009 we'll be talking the 3 Bs: Blazers, Bottle Deposits and (No More) Bar Smoking. Will we be discussing another Roy-less loss against the LA L*kers from Sunday, or another Roy-less miracle? (Either way, apparently it will be a Roy-less game, likely the Pistons game Wednesday too). Two new laws with some potentially major economic impact also went into effect this year: the addition of a 5 cent deposit on single-use water and flavored water bottles; and the banning of smoking in nearly any workplace, including bars and restaurants.
Join us every Monday at 730AM for a look at what's going on in Oregon, the LoadedO way! If you missed it, don't despair--go asynchronous--here's the podcast link.
I added a couple of thoughts to the summary, extending the idea that maybe this was the team the Blazers send out when they want to rest up for the really big game Sunday--the Evil Twin Team.
I really hadn't intended to miss most of the game against the Hornets tonight--in fact for a fair bit of time I expected I might scrounge a couple of craigslisters and take lil Joe to this one, since it seemed like a good matchup. (We actually opted for a sweet deal on the Lexus Club for the Pistons Bucks.)
I did see pretty much all of the fourth quarter and followed the game in some fashion for nearly the whole game, but if it looked as shaky as it sounded I don't want to see the replay--other than Tyson Chandler giving Joel the Chicken Wing Shiver after Pryz objected to Chandler hacking on his own bum wing. That was pretty great, once again, to see other teams get frustrated by the Blazers fighing back. It was definitely the high point of the game, both by the peak and the noticeable valleys on either side--particularly afterwards, when you'd think the team would respond and attack the new weakness. Nope.
I can sum up the game pretty quickly:
The Blazers shot like crap, almost everyone. Rudy led the team with 19 and was probably steadiest, but next at 16 was Outlaw and they all came in Outlaw style, unpredictably and with not much else good in the production hopper. They shot less than 40% for the game, less than 25% from distance. Bleccch.
The Blazers, other than Joel, rebounded like crap. This was the Blazer Evil Twin night, when LaMarcus can't hit the jumper and disappears inside, and Oden starts Foul Hunting and bagging big game quickly. Get outrebounded like they did, and this Blazers team almost surely loses.
On nights where Oden goes foul crazy, Ike needs to concentrate on putbacks and boards, good fouls and outlet passes. NOT dribbling, not shooting from further than 5 feet. Baby steps for baby GO, OK?
Blake was Evil Twin Blake. His shot did not fall and thus he couild not steady the team's shakiness on offense, but more importantly he did not distribute well, unable mostly to find his big men down low as he had against Boston. And if he's not passing down low, he's not driving down low either--and if the 3 isn't falling, who cares about Steve Blake, defensively? No one.
Jerryd Bayless is not yet, not quite, as good as Brandon.
Nobody else at guard, or frankly any other position, is as good as Brandon.
Thirteen turnovers for a good turnover team is too many turnovers.
Channing Frye is the lanky princess locked in the tower, where some handsome GM somewhere will someday rescue her and buy out her contract.
Sergio had no assists--and no turnovers--in limited minutes.
If Blake is not in distributor mode, not moving the ball around well enough to (say) pry Travis Outlaw from the corner, then it absolutely HAS to fall on Sergio to get things going. When he's not committing any turnovers, funny to say, that tells me he wasn't even trying to create out there. I think he's not used to having different players besides Rudy, but that's no excuse in the long run.
Did I mention no Brandon Roy?
The guys at Blazer's Edge will give you the educated recap and report from the media hovel; I prefer happier memories. As Mike Barnett apparently said tonight, would you rather beat NO and lose to the Celtics? I think not.
It was truly a night (this is Tuesday in Boston now, not tonight) where all the best faces were on and everyone came to play and execute. They didn't turn the ball over, they controlled second shots--it was beautiful. And set to music, below, it's a work of sports art. So let's put this ugly but probably divinely oriented defeat into the permanent sleep of the past, and focus on the happy state of Tuesday prior. Opportunity wise, it's at least theoretically achievable Sunday in LA, probably without Roy again).
I confess to being rather a stats geek, whether it's election statistics or fire/EMS or basic demography or sabermetrics. As much as I love football as a sport, it's a big downer that so few games means a small sample and much more variability in football stats. And other than Rachel Maddow and of course Barack Obama, who in politics came out of 2008 with their ticket punched more loudly than former Baseball Prospectus genius turned polling genius Nate Silver? It was a good year for geeks.
And then there's basketball, which is kind of in between baseball and football in stat utility. Since the last time I was heavy into the NBA however, folks like ESPN's John Hollinger have injected the stat geek's spirit into it, and several good ratio statistics have been introduced.
Some of the better basketball stats in terms of really seeing how well teams and players stack up are the points scored and allowed per 100 possessions, which compares efficiency against an even standard; and point differential (points scored minus points allowed). The differential can also be extrapolated in a quick formula to get what in baseball are called Pythagorean Wins: the expected win-loss total based on point differential. The excess is written off to luck and expected to be balanced out in the future as luck naturally turns.
These and other stats at the player level are combined by Hollinger into a PER stat, which estimates total production per minute, pace adjusted. One of the component stats that I think really gets to the essence of a particular skill is the suite of rebound stats. What Hollinger does is compute the percentage of all possible rebounds (offensive, defensive or both) that the player actually got. It stands to reason that every time a shot is missed and you're on the floor, in theory you should have a chance at a rebound and the best rebounders get the highest percentage of available boards.
I've spoiled the surprise, of course, but what I discovered while messing around with Hollinger's stats is that when it comes to rebounding, especially on the defensive end, there's no doubt that the best bound-for-bound glassman in the NBA is none other than the Vanilla Gorilla, Joel Pryzbilla.
As I said before the final three games of 2008 for the Blazers, dropping the game to Dallas (with the Toronto win understood) meant that Boston ultimately stood in the way of 20 wins in 32--a great goal which would leave just 30 additional notches to 50, but which seemed a tough order to accomplish, even at home and with Brandon Roy playing as normal.
Except he wasn't available, and as I watched the live look-in on ESPN's Coast to Coast show (which was a lifesaver on a coast to coast flight with Direct TV in seat...by God the only thing good about Jet Blue) I confess to a fatalistic feeling of "oh well, won't miss much not catching that one live." What little we got to see looked pretty good though, as from the get go the Blazers were delivering right into the teeth of the Celtics and ultramouthy Kevin Garnett.
The Holiday Bowl was a nice diversion (Go Ducks!) and as the Celtics built a 12-point lead at 25-13, I wasn't ready to give up the ghost but thought it had to be a turning point of the game. Indeed, as I watched the replay video of the game Mike Rice noted the point in the 2nd quarter where the Celtics pushed their way from an advantage to a death grip in Boston. (Rice by the way I think is an extraordinarily perceptive basketball man, but boy he was terrible to listen to last night, just kind of loopy.)
I think last night there were four people who made quantum leaps in stature and leadership with their play. Last night was a sentinel game not only because of the obvious W and who it came against. There were some concrete and distinctive things that will last beyond the tally in the standings, just as the loss in Boston seemed to punch the Blazers backward a few steps in December. They were punked and they said so, and it bruised their psyche.
Just a quick note, if you're interested--unless one of the other editors or you the more adventurous dear reader opts to publish something over the next two days, the site will be dark untill 2009. It KILLS me that I will be flying over the middle of the country during the Blazers-Celtics game tomorrow night, and I don't get into SeaTac until almost midnight--which means Portland not until 4AM likely, and I'll be a wreck on New Year's Eve (although at this point I anticipate having to go into work at some point that day).
So I wanted to take the opportunity to wish you and yours a New Year in which you find the happiness you seek and the love you deserve. Thank you for making Loaded Orygun a small part of your internet life in 2008, and we're excited to see what 2009 brings. Drive safely, watch out for the drunk crazies--and of course under no circumstances should you be one yourself, or allow a friend or loved one to drink and drive.
Here's a special LO holiday quiz for you: At least one Pacific Northwest contribution was removed from the White House tree at the order of the First Lady. Was it:
(a) A pink gossamer angel flinging a size-eleven wingtip shoe, contributed by Ashland resident Howard Purlong?
Or
(b) A softball-sized, red and white collage globe with the words "Impeach Bush," contributed by Seattle artist Deborah Lawrence?
Once again I'm covering the Blazers game on my own little road trip--thanks to the Blazer internet faithful as usual for finding the pirate feed of the tilt against Toronto at the Gahden. Or as Keith Olbermann might have put it Christmas night, the "Guhhh"-den. And for the first half, it looked like "guhhh" might be the order of the evening once again, as a generally inferior Raptors squad found the shooting magic and threatened to run the better-rested home team off the court.
It's not entirely fair to compare the effort in the two games however, because while there were still plenty of open looks and bad defensive lapses, the effort was 100x better from almost everyone. The smartness of the execution may have been lacking at times, but it wasn't because players were dogging it or standing around looking confused.
Tonight by contrast they got AFTER it, and in the second half it finally began to show--but in the end, some of the same problems remain as they head into the big Boston rematch, and the overriding truism is that when Brandon Roy is on in the 4th quarter, head to the ticket window and put your money on the Blazers. If he's not, put your head between your knees and breathe.
It was a treat to be able to catch the Blazers on Christmas, since they were the late game on TNT's national broadcast. I settled in amidst the wrapping paper and half-empty mugs of various nog and grog, hoping to see Portland's Dozen work for their 14th straight Xmas win (although lord knows when the last one was). Sure, Dallas is another one of those Tier Two teams in the West, and with Josh Howard back from injury they were on fire. But hey, this was a Rose Garden game, and in that second contest against Denver a light seemed to go on that if they play an aggressive game, they'll get both the calls and the respect of the opponent (and in the NBA respect means giving you the freedom to pick your shot because the defender needs to be ready for anything.)
Alas, it was not to be, and afterwards I was significantly frustrated with the execution in key sections of the game--they'd be going along pretty well and then POOF! someone would do something really, really dumb or fail to do something really, really easy. I was mad. I was mad at Oden, I was mad at Travis, and for the first game I was REALLY mad at Nate McMillan.
This morning I'm still disappointed by the loss, but I've recalibrated my review of their effort and what it means for judging the team's true level and prospects for the rest of the season. If you had told me in October that Portland would be able to body up on Dallas, frustrate them and take their best players out of their rhythm (and literally the game), but would fall short at the end, I'd have said "Well yeah, that's about what I'd expect--and face it, last year's team might probably have not even stayed competitive throughout."
That I'm steamed about the loss and the way they lost, is testament to the team's strong improvement and the new expectations on their season. 41-41 was a great result in 07-08, but for the youngest team in the NBA (if you don't count Raef LaFrenz) suddenly that looks unacceptable and a serious shortchanging of their potential. That doesn't help in the moment, as I watch Steve Blake leap into the air and only begin contemplating what to do with the ball when he's already on the way down--for the third time--but a little perspective does salve some of the wounds.
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