Dec 7 AT Toronto

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andalusian said:
Oden is probably leading the league in bogus calls against him. He should really work on this aspect of his game ;)
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Seriously, he should try to break that habit of clearing out his opponent with his non-shooting arm. It's an easy call for a ref to make. He's got til spring, so no sweat.
 
MARIS61 said:
Seriously, he should try to break that habit of clearing out his opponent with his non-shooting arm. It's an easy call for a ref to make. He's got til spring, so no sweat.
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What's with the refs missing the grabbing of the jersey calls this season. It's bad enough they miss the obvious foul, but then they turn around and call a foul on the guy whose jersey was grabbed. They missed Anthony Morrow grabbing Rudy's jersey at the end of the Golden State game, called the foul on Rudy and then hit him with a T - essentially costing the Blazers that game. Then today, O'Neal was yanking on the back of Oden's jersey with one hand while hacking him with the other and they called the clear out on Oden and negated his basket (and FT). Yes, Oden did push off with his off arm, but it was a response to O'Neal trying to rip the shirt off his back - and it almost cost Portland the game.

I can see one ref being out of position and missing these kinds of calls, but why can't/don't one of the other refs overrule them - or at least huddle together and discuss the call. In the old days, refs used to do this frequently. If one ref had a better angle, or saw something the ref who blew the whistle missed, they would discuss it, reach a consensus and make the correct call. Now, thanks in part to Tim Donaghy there's this paranoia that anytime two refs discuss something they are trying to fix a game and cover the point spread. Geez, the best way to silence the conspiracy theorists is to MAKE THE CORRECT CALL. Nobody can accuse you of fixing a game when the calls you make are correct and supported by the replays. Blowing such obvious calls late in close games is EXACTLY what fuels the conspiracy fires.

BNN
 
BLAZINGGIANTS said:
Maybe I have higher expectations than you. There are very few games on the calendar that I don't expect Portland to win. Now, I realize there's going to be a lot of games that I expect Portland to win that they'll lose. That's how the NBA is. I mean, how many teams have won 70 games? Even the best teams lose to far weaker teams. Though Portland is young, let's not use that excuse. Let's look at our roster, and I think most would say from #1 through #12, there are few teams with more talent. And our team is just going to keep growing together, gain experience, and when they learn how to step up for big games, watch out, because that's when the rebirth of Rip City is really going to take off. Maybe it's just the era of Blazer basketball I grew up in. The late 80's and into the early 90's, every night, the team was in good position to win. I haven't felt that away about our roster since, until now.

That being said, I have a lot of confidence in these young guys. They're hard workers with a lot of pride, and I expected them to bounce back from Boston and beat on a team in transition (Toronto just got a new coach).
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Are you BrianinWa? Seriously asking...
 
number 10 said:
we've been lucky? winning close games like that isn't really a repeatable skill, maybe there are players here and there who completely choke, but after years of high school and college you'd think most of these players are weeded out.
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16-5 last year in games decided by five or less, and this season has a similar percentage if not higher.

Seemingly, it is a repeatable skill, as it should be with good teams.
 
Just thought I'd let everybody on here know how happy I am that we won! I can't figure out why people on here actually complain after a great win like this. Go Blazers!
 
Oden's best game to date, easily. And he's starting to get in better shape. Hell, he even looks a bit slimmer/more athletic.

Still needs to work on his hand strength, though, so the ball doesn't get slapped out so easily.
 
PapaG said:
16-5 last year in games decided by five or less, and this season has a similar percentage if not higher.

Seemingly, it is a repeatable skill, as it should be with good teams.
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My understanding is that statistically it has been demonstrated NOT to be a repeatable skill.

I know that is the case for baseball teams, but I am not 100% sure for the NBA.

In any case, 1.25 seasons is not any sort of statistically significat repetition.

Ed O.
 
Heh, I'll take positive repetition whether or not it's significant.

I think this goes along with that stat last year about how Nate and the Blazers were the best team in the NBA on the possession coming out of a timeout. Since close games and timeouts usually go hand-in-hand, and since there are more timeouts in a game than the ones used at the end, I think there might be something there. I think they win those games because they do come up with something that works.
 
PapaG said:
Um, no. LOL

Reading these threads after the fact is a lot of fun.
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I agree. :)

Lot of posts to read through, but I enjoy doing it. I slept through the game. Woke up just in time to see my Cowboys blow it against the Steelers in HD. :(
 
Speaking of close games from MB's Blog.

The win improves the Blazers’ record to 15-7, 8-7 on the road, and 8-1 against the Eastern Conference. It also continued an impressive streak in close games. The Blazers have now won 8-consecutive games that have been decided by 3 points or less. The team is 5-0 this season in games decided by 4 points or less. In the Brandon Roy era, the team is now 25-9 in games decided by 3 points or less.
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Hmmm, might have something to do with Roy.

When I first read that I couldn't understand why it wasn't just 8-0 since they were 3 and less so of course 4 and less. Then I figured that part of the 8 must be from last year. Ok, I'm slow at times.
 
MARIS61 said:
Figure we've played 7 more road games than Boston and LA, and 6 more than Cleveland, and it all looks pretty even so far.

http://www.nba.com/standings/team_record_comparison/conferenceNew_Std_Cnf.html
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I'm not sure what you mean? We are 8-7 on the road while Boston is 8-1 and LA 7-1. Boston already has as many wins on the road as us and LA only needs one win to have the same. By the time they play another 6-7 road games they'll have a much better record on the road than us most likely going by their winning precentage on the road up to this point. The only place we match up well is at home and we have a lot more games to go there to match them.
 
This is a case where what would have been just another game on the schedule became, because of timing, big. Going into the road trip a lot of people said that 3-2 or even 2-3 would be acceptable. But after getting their butts kicked in Boston, the Blazers badly needed a win to restore their confidence and morale. Losing this game, against a struggling team, after building a 10 point 4th quarter lead, would have been devastating. Things really don't get easier; they face Orlando (the team, not my cat) at home then go BACK on the road against Utah, still tough at home. A loss would have made winning those two games much tougher.

Amazing, what a difference one point makes.
 
I also wanted to point out how perimeter oriented Bosh is. I know you guys give LMA a lot of shit for being out there so much, and soo many of you drool over Bosh, but I think if we got Bosh, he would see the same criticism.

LMA's ceiling is INSANELY high, and I thought he outplayed Bosh last night. He is going to be one of the best PFs in the NBA in a couple years. He is getting better and better. I really love watching him play. He has been running the court better, blocking more shots, poking out balls and getting steals, hittin the offensive glass... he has really improved his game, and is focused on bringing something to the team outside of scoring. And his scoring is coming back. I love watchin' LMA play. He has some sick post moves as well. I DO agree that he should go to the post more, and not fade away. He should go at the basket. He looks really good when he does goes at it.
 
Did anyone catch Webster's foot status? I remember hearing Mike Rice say that Webs took his shoe off after playing and saying it was sore.
Do you think he'll be back in the line-up tomororow?
 
Personally, I think Webs should wait until sometime during our home stand. Get a few more practices under his belt, and take it a little easier on his foot. Rice said he saw a limp, and yeah, that Webs took his shoe off and that it was sore.
 
MrJayremmie said:
I also wanted to point out how perimeter oriented Bosh is. I know you guys give LMA a lot of shit for being out there so much, and soo many of you drool over Bosh, but I think if we got Bosh, he would see the same criticism.

LMA's ceiling is INSANELY high, and I thought he outplayed Bosh last night. He is going to be one of the best PFs in the NBA in a couple years. He is getting better and better. I really love watching him play. He has been running the court better, blocking more shots, poking out balls and getting steals, hittin the offensive glass... he has really improved his game, and is focused on bringing something to the team outside of scoring. And his scoring is coming back. I love watchin' LMA play. He has some sick post moves as well. I DO agree that he should go to the post more, and not fade away. He should go at the basket. He looks really good when he does goes at it.
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I somewhat doubt that LMA will ever be as good as Bosh offensively, but he's already a better perimeter and weakside defender. I wouldn't worry too much about him, most NBA bigs take awhile to fully develop (He does need to get more aggressive on the glass however, that's really an Achilles heel of his game).
 
The place where Bosh is clearly better than LMA is attacking the rim face-up from the dribble - Bosh is like an athletic SF playing PF and that's why he is such a great player. However - Aldridge is actually a better defender than Bosh and I doubt Bosh would retain his rebounding advantage playing on a good rebounding team like Portland next to the two centers currently #1 and #3 in the league in rebounding rate... (in comparison, JO is #18)
 
LA will be Sheed... Having a Sheed like player with a great attitude is a good thing.
 
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