God damn national media

[BlazersBlood]

I enjoy watching the nation pundits have to back track and eat their words. It's comedy.

 

[Nikolokolus]

This, though, does seem like a lack of research...and it annoyed me when the announcers/TNT panel kept mentioning this...because Portland was almost exactly as hot to finish the season. Yes, they're now without Roy...but they beat the Lakers and Thunder without Roy.

The reason they didn't mention it, IMO, is because they were looking for numbers that established their narrative: that Phoenix is currently a juggernaut and Portland is just lucky to be there.

I don't mind people picking against Portland. I mean, I picked against Portland once Roy was lost for the series. But concocting a narrative and selectively using numbers to frame it is pretty crap, IMO.



You know, I don't think that lineups really show much of an overall edge to Phoenix.

I think Nash and Miller is a push. Nash is better offensively but Miller, while no great defensive player these days, is definitely superior to Nash on defense.

Phoenix has a definite edge at shooting guard with Roy out.

Portland has a slight edge at small forward. No way I'd rather have Hill than Batum in this series.

It's a push at power forward...Amare is generally more consistent offensively, but Aldridge is definitely better defensively...he's solid while Amare is considered one of the worst defensive power forwards in basketball.

And Portland has a big edge at center. Even if you give Phoenix the edges at point guard and power forward, I think Portland's edge at center washes that out.

Portland is actually really talented...even if you remove Roy, their starting lineup looks pretty good.

Actually:

Batum>Hill
Camby>Collins/Frye

If the national media were thinking that those matchups were a "push", or in the Suns favor, as you did, then I can see why no one thought we'd be competitive.

I think I meant more overall. Certainly I'm more enthused about the Blazers starting 5, but once you factor in the 6-8th men coming in off the bench the play of the Suns' reserves certainly seemed to indicate an advantage, especially with the way Bayless struggled in the second half of the season, Howard has looked tired lately and Martell's up and down psyche.

I'm not saying I think the Phoenix team is way more talented than ours, I just think it's easy to look at what they have as a third party observer and be higher on them than us.

 

[maxiep]

It just shows that the league is all about matchups. Denver or Utah (even banged up) would likely wipe the floor with us. However, Phoenix owned both of them. However, we seem to do well against Phoenix. The law of transitivity doesn't apply when it comes to basketball playoffs.

 

[mobes23]

Shoot, once the post season begins I always laugh at how the media can be so strongly for the team that won the most recent game. If Phoenix wins game #2, then we'll hear how they have the Blazers solved and their ship is back on course.

 

[The Professional Fan]

Shoot, once the post season begins I always laugh at how the media can be so strongly for the team that won the most recent game. If Phoenix wins game #2, then we'll hear how they have the Blazers solved and their ship is back on course.

Fact.

 

[The_Lillard_King]

I get where you are coming from PF.

I'm a huge Blazer fan that saw Phx in 5 or 6. More so, I thought Ptd would be competitive at home but didn't have much of a chance in Phx and maybe get blown out in game one.

For me it wasn't so much match ups as much as styles. Phx, the best shooting team in the league v. Ptd score quick or grind it out minimizing turn overs and taking quality shots. Ptd doing that without thier grind it out player and star of the team.

Also, have you been watching Amare since the all star break. I agree he draws a tough match up with Camby, but Amare is going to be heard from before this series is over. I just hope Camby can nuetralize him for 3 more games.

Not making the argument that the media isn't lazy, only that I don't think thay got it so wrong this time. Love the fact that I am wrong and will be screaming at the top of my lungs just to get past the first round. But I can see why "experts" thought the suns would run away with it.

 

[The Professional Fan]

I get where you are coming from PF.

I'm a huge Blazer fan that saw Phx in 5 or 6. More so, I thought Ptd would be competitive at home but didn't have much of a chance in Phx and maybe get blown out in game one.

For me it wasn't so much match ups as much as styles. Phx, the best shooting team in the league v. Ptd score quick or grind it out minimizing turn overs and taking quality shots. Ptd doing that without thier grind it out player and star of the team.

Also, have you been watching Amare since the all star break. I agree he draws a tough match up with Camby, but Amare is going to be heard from before this series is over. I just hope Camby can nuetralize him for 3 more games.

Not making the argument that the media isn't lazy, only that I don't think thay got it so wrong this time. Love the fact that I am wrong and will be screaming at the top of my lungs just to get past the first round. But I can see why "experts" thought the suns would run away with it.

Hm. Well. I wouldn't bet, even now, that Portland will win the series. But to say they didn't have a chance to be competitive is asinine. Lunacy. Lazy.

 

[BGrantFan]

Getting into it with MARIS is like arguing with a Sergio bobblehead.

Repped!

 

[Rhal]

The one bad thing about being a blazer fan, although its not really a bad thing, is that the media isn't as keyed in on us as a lot of other teams. We are one of the smallest market team in the West playoffs and one of the smaller ones in the entire playoffs. OKC is smaller then us but they have a superstar in Durant so they will get a ton of coverage. Inless we are upsetting a team or doing something crazy we dont' come up in the media were as if Kobe yawns it'll be on sportscenter.
BTW Kenny from TNT just said "Portland will win the PHX series"

 

[Natebishop3]

Repped!

It really was!

 

[KingSpeed]

What? I'm sure they did ten minutes of research and the first item on their list was the absence of our 3 time all-star and 22 points per game top fifteen player, then they went down the list and saw that Phoenix was smoking hot in the second half of the season and that on a position by position basis the Suns held an advantage or at worst a push every where on the floor.

FIFTEEN minutes of research, depending on the speed of the internet connection, would show them that we were 2-1 against them in the regular season including a win in Phoenix without Brandon Roy. It would show that we held them under 100 points a game in the regular season. How exactly would that change because of the mere absence of our top scorer? More research would show them that not only did we beat Phoenix without Brandon Roy, but we won IN SAN ANTONIO without Brandon Roy and blew out the Magic without Brandon Roy. And just a teeny bit more research would show that though we have only one All Star, we are far from a one trick pony. We still have top 50 PER players in Miller and Aldridge. We have athletic defensive wings who can shoot in Batum and Webster. If you do a teeny bit of research, you will see that, even without Brandon Roy, we are a better team than the Suns. Roy isn't the only guy who has feasted on the Suns. Miller, Blake, and Bayless all feasted on the Suns this season. While we lost Blake, that still leaves more minutes for Miller and Bayless to dominate the Suns.

Still, I don't see how they couldn't look at the things I mentioned above in boldface and not realize that we had more than a fighter's chance to win this series.