The second quarter, the Blazers continued their sloppy play, and allowed Golden State to build a double digit lead, making sloppy plays on one end while allowing the Warriors to shoot wide open shots at the other. A late 11-2 run by Brandon, however, got the Blazers within 2 at the break.
The Blazers came out of halftime even worse than before. The lead ballooned to 16. Roy kept the Blazers in the game, netting 14 points in the 3rd quarter, but the blazers continued to play porous D. Even Nicolas Batum struggled on D, excluding another one of his fast break blocks (is it a coincident that all three of them this year have been on national TV?). A late 3 by Rudy got Portland within 13 after 3.
The Golden State Warriors played the fourth like the Blazers have lately--not scoring. Portland's D tightened up. they started to close out on the shooters and suddenly, the Warriors offense looked pedestrian. The Blazers slowly came back behind Roy as Portland finally decided to start taking advantage of their size and played inside-out basketball. Rudy hit a 3 to pull Portland within 3, then Andre posted up the much smaller Stephan Curry, then kicked it out to an open Rudy--swish. Portland switched up the recent trend and dominated the 4th quarter, outscoring the Golden State 27-9 in that frame to pull out the 5 point victory.
Individual notes
Brandon Roy was back to his pre-injury form tonight. His outside shot wan't falling, but he made up for it by aggressively attacking the hoop. He almost had a sports center top 10 dunk; but regardless, his efficiency was the best its been in a while: 41 points off 22 shots.
Juwan Howard had a nice game. The Blazers went to him on 3 strait possessions in the second. Made hook shot, made hook shot, then an assist to Bayless on a baseline cut. 6 points, 5, boards and 5 assists
Nicolas Batum had a nice game, wasn't spectacular, but decent. Outside of his fast break block, he didn't a great job on D. He went 2/3 from downtown to improve his much improved three point percentage
Jerry Bayless had a great game, the stats don't jump out, but he was very crucial in our runs in getting the energy up
Andre Miller overcame a slow start, and had a good 4th. Down the stretch he went to work on the much smaller Curry and made some plays
Rudy air balled a three in the first, but it got a lot better from there. He hit a big 3 to end the third, and made back to back threes in the 4th that really took the energy out of the crowd. Speaking of the crowd, there were more people coming to see this 17 win team than some playoff teams.
Marcus Camby had 17 boards, 9 of them offensive.
After three quarters, LaMarcus was 0-7 with 6 Turnovers and 4 fouls. However he uncharacteristically came through in the fourth with a couple of "and 1's" after Nate uncharacteristically called his number in the fourth. He ended with 14 points off 4/14 shooting.
Webster continued down his slide in production and playing time
Dante Cunningham didn't play for some reason
All in all, a nice win to get off the snide against Golden State, but I wouldn't mind a blowout win against lesser teams once in a while.
Check out a much better recap at Blazersedge.com
Caption Time!
1 comment:
absolutely phenomenal performance by Brandon Roy, that is a cat you don't want to mess with
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