Cup of Joe and a game: Wizards vs. Blazers game thread

[yakbladder]

What the hell do you have against Devil worshipers?

Well, except you Nik...I meant non-Blazer fan devil worshippers.

I should have just said Laker fans and that would have sufficed.

 

[hasoos]

Folks have some patience. They are playing Rudy early coming back from his injury and he probably needs to get his legs back. While Washington has been awful for a lot of this year, the facts are they are playing .500 ball in their last 10, and have been showing some signs of settling down and playing hard since Arenas went out. Hell, we have seen how controversy can focus a team here. They are having that happen now, in Washington. This game was a prime opportunity to rest Roy and still get a win.

Just like teams used to rest their stars when they came into Portland, back when we sucked.

 

[BrianFromWA]

So I guess our record now means nothing, eh?

People want to write off last year, and the improvement from the year before, and the record this year and and and... so what exactly is the basis for a success by a coach? If it's championship or nothing then there are MANY failed coaches.

For my money (and I've given the Blazers a lot of it in the last 4 years) our 2-4 Playoff Record means much more than a 54-28 regular season record. Unless you're a fan of the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks or the 93-94 Sonics.

Or, of course, if you think that the Houston Rockets were so far more talented then us that they were able to overcome HCA to win a playoff series. I personally don't, but I'm not a scout and therefore clueless.

If our record means so much, where's the clamor for giving away 3 games in the last two weeks to teams that we held a fourth-quarter lead against? Where's the clamor for losing to teams with well-below-.500 records?

There's a distinction b/w "championship or nothing" and other alternatives. Again, maybe you should ask Avery Johnson (another decent-but-not-great-longtime-PG-turned-coach) about the rapid improvement his teams made, the 67-win season he had, and the reason he's on TV telling me about strategy rather than implementing it.