A couple of next-morning thoughts:
1. We got a great game from the Lakers. Yeah it was the second of a back-to-back, but that's countered by Howard hitting his FT's at his Superman percentage instead of his Clark Kent percentage. Emotionally, we should build on this win, because the Lakers tried out there.
2. Lillard's first game is now one of the best rookie guard debuts ever (in a room with only Oscar Robertson and Isaiah Thomas). And Lillard actually seemed a little annoyed by being told that in the postgame interviews. Not embarrassed or confused or surprised, but, "Man, shut up. I didn't even think I did all that great. Call me back in April." Lillard seems laser focused on the next game. That's maturity, and maturity that comes from being the leader of a team for four years before joining the Blazers.
3. The Lakers are old and tired. The Princeton Offense doesn't suit them at all. Brown needs to be fired tomorrow. If they go 0-3, he might be. These bad fits all around helped the Blazers when the Blazers weren't helping themselves. You could tell in the 4th that the kids on our team were tired and the adrenaline had worn off. The comfortable lead made the crowd quiet and confident. A Lakers team from five years ago would have destroyed us in that situation, but this year's model actually helped with Kobe's overreaching causing bad shots and turnovers. They needed to be about five years younger for the starters to support a bench that thin...
4. ...which, luckily, is exactly what our starters are, because our bench is equally thin. The starters scored 103 of the 116 points for Portland last night, and that is worrisome. We basically played a playoff rotation too, which might bite us in the butt when Lillard hits the rookie wall.
5. Batum's aggressiveness was a less pressing and more healthy sort; he knew that his outside shot was off a bit, so he got in there to grab garbage boards and shots to try and jump start his game. It worked, and it seems like the end result could motivate Batum to try harder at that portion of the game. Of course, it's the Lakers, and he loves being in those games where he doesn't snooze on defense or offense because the game "counts more." I'm hopeful on Nic's newfound ground game.
6. Meyers Leonard didn't foul out in extended minutes, and wasn't abused by Dwight Howard. This says two things: one, that Leonard kept his game within itself and didn't try too hard to impress and so didn't make a fool of himself. And two, Dwight Howard is not 100% by any stretch of the imagination. He looked tight and immobile most of the time, and let a rookie get under his skin a little bit in the second half. This performance is a good job for a project rookie, and bodes well for him in the future. It looks like he has the fundamentals down pretty well for such a young kid.
7. Matthews is back, aggressive, and happened to be on last night. I think that he'll always be streaky, but he seems to have a more varied presence in Stott's motion offense. In fact, everyone has something new to show us this season under the new offense. Yeah, LMA hung around the midrange doing his Channing Frye impression in the first half, but it served a prupose and he hit most of those shots. It helped him in the second half when he showed a new dribble drive move and some nice spin moves off the post.
8. How weird was it to have LMA be the fourth best player on the floor tonight? And despite Batum's huge game, it was Lillard's turn to be #1 tonight. And as long as all four of those players have good performances, you can pencil in an exciting game that probably ends in a win. Very exciting potential out of this group. Get us a solid sparkplug on the bench worth 8-12 a night (Heck, maybe Sasha is that guy?), and we'd be a lot closer to fully baked than unbaked.
All in all, the most excited I've been for the Blazers in YEARS. Keep it up, fellas!
