Some teams with some work to do

Late night. Early morning. At least there wasn’t some stupid-early wakeup call to catch some delayed flight.

Anyway …

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Watching the Blazers capitulate to the Suns with alarming ease, one thing was hammered home: Portland has no one who commands even a consistent double-team and if you don’t have that, it’s virtually impossible to get really flowing offensively and win games.

I like a lot about the Blazers – a healthy Brandon Roy is a joy to watch control a game and the wings are okay in an up-tempo game – but there is some work to do before they can take that proverbial “next step.”

LaMarcus Aldridge is a pretty good player but the Suns got away with playing him straight up for most of the night – as most teams do – and that allowed Phoenix to stay home on the rest of the Blazers, and not have their defence scrambling all the time.

Marcus Camby and Juwan Howard are vets who know how to play but they are hardly over-powering offensive forces and, for some reason, Rudy Fernandez has turned into Marco Belinelli – an exciting player with multiple skills who simply cannot get untracked for any length of time – and that’s been killing Portland.

I think the series could well be over in Game 6, even the raucous crowd at the Rose Garden may not be enough to salvage a game for the Blazers and then there has to be some moves made in the Pacific Northwest for Portland to maintain its place in the pecking order, let alone move up.

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What a disappointing end in Charlotte, wasn’t it?

First, there are all kinds of questions about the future of peripatetic coach Larry Brown, who may be eyeing are a return to Philly – where his wife and young family have lived all along. Forget all the denials floating around, there’s some substance to the chatter and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he leaves.

And then they go out with a whimper against the Magic, swept away and with many questions to be answered.

They have no low post presence whatsoever, with all due respect to Theo Ratliff, Tyson Chandler and Nazr Muhammed, and their point guard issues are serious with Ray Felton an unrestricted free agent and not all that good in the series, anyway.

And while it’s all nice and good to see Michael Jordan sitting next to the bench alternating between cheering and wearing a chagrined expression, you wonder how that team’s going to improve over the course of the summer.

After all, MJ’s track record as an NBA exec is, in a word, brutal.

Kwame Brown, Adam Morrison, Leonard Hamilton. That, my friends, is a litany of disaster that makes Rob Babcock look like Red Auerbach.

I don’t know what exactly is going to transpire in Charlotte but I don’t think there’s reason for any Bobcats fan to be brimming with optimism.

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We’ve been through a lot of the surprises in this year’s NBA playoffs talking about individual players and the Oklahoma City Thunder but, I have to tell you, nothing has really surprised me more than the Utah Jazz.

They don’t have the injured Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur blows out an Achilles and still they lead the Denver Nuggets 3-1.

They start a handful of guys relatively unheard of – I don’t imagine there are a lot of Kyrylo Fesenko fans among us – and Carlos Boozer has been banged up with some rib issues almost the entire series.

They get a tough, tough out in Denver in the first round and I’m sure a lot of people thought that series would be the most one-sided in West when Okur went out.

But, Deron Williams has been other-worldly so far and if there’s a better, all-around point guard in the NBA today, I’m going to have to be pretty heavily swayed.

The thing about Williams is that he’s almost a mirror image of his coach in that all he does is compete hard and get the job done. There’s not a whole lot of style but an immense about of substance to his game and he probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves.

But he wins. A lot.

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We got through the in-game blog thing last night with no issues and I’m glad to report there were about 500 hearty souls who checked in for the late game. Way to go.

And we’ll give it another shot tonight for the Spurs-Mavs at 9:30 p.m., and hopefully we get a good game.

See you then, right?

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When someone asked me last night during the game whether I could see a resemblance between Andre Miller and Richard Pryor and it brought memories flooding back.

Way back in 1999, when I was still in the “oh, boy, it’s the run-up to the NBA draft” stage of my career, when Miller came in for his workout, the first thing I thought – and so did Danny Devito of the Sun -- was he had to be related to one of the unsung great stand-ups of his generation.

But then it got weirder because a few days later, or sometime in that same process, the Raptors had in Jason Terry and a young Jason Terry bore a striking resemblance to Jerry Rice.

Neither of them looked enough like an NBA player, however, as the Raptors made their boldest draft-day move that year, swapping No. 5 for Antonio Davis and taking Alexander Radojevic with the No. 11 selection.

Wonder what would have happened had Miller not gone No. 8 and Terry No. 10 in that draft, though.

The No. 9 pick? Why, none other than Shawn Marion.

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The NFL draft is over, right? Must be since on the TV last night I saw an ad for the CFL draft sometime soon and if they drag out a red carpet and do 500 hours of TV coverage I may lose it.

And I wonder just who Canada’s version of Mel Kiper is? Do we have one?

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Hey, remember last week when one of the Irregulars brought it to our attention that the one and only Oliver Miller was playing in the PBL Finals for something called the Lawton Fort Sill Cavalry against the Rochester something-or-others in the championship series.

Well, check this official league release to find out just what Oliver was up to. Yep, suspended for the rest of the season for a contretemps with some fans in Rochester.

Go figure.

Anyway, it’s not only Miller (and if anyone here calls him The Big O they shall forever go on the poop list since it’s sacrilege) who’d be familiar to old-time NBA fans.

Yep, that’s the legendary Michael Ray Richardson who’s coaching the Cavalry, too.

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Comments

[Tom]

Regarding players that look like other people, I have to say there have always been two others that have struck me for the comparisons:

Kyle Korver = Ashton Kutcher

Robert Horry = Will Smith

I've always been amazed at how similar they look.

[Mr. Cook]

Doug: When you read that story about Oliver Miller, did the dark recesses of your mind dredge up the time that the Rain Man (Kemp) fouled Miller in a completely normal, if slightly hard, way and Miller tried to through a chair at him? I presume you covering the game.

[Lorie]

@doug: Yes, "Hoosiers" is a terrific movie - one of the best - but that wasn't the one I was thinking of. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with the name of this particular film, but to protect the (still somewhat functioning) brain cells I have, the conclusion I've come to is that somehow the plots of those two great basketball movies "Hoosiers" and "Glory Road" got jumbled in my mind, and voila! instant confusion.

[Dave]

Off-topic here, but was going through some stuff in my head today and does anybody (Doug??) know the status of Michael Redd? Is he ever expected to come back and be even a shadow of his former self? He's been out a long long time, I've caught a few Milwaukee games and I don't think I've even heard anything about him. Of course, it could be me not paying as much attention as I should be.

[John]

Doug, How do you rate Dwight in the long list of NBA dominant centers? Personally I think he is a bit over-hyped, but still a great player. I found the whole Superman thing where he took off from inside the free throw line (not outside) and threw the ball at the rim and had it rattle around before it went down was amusing but I don’t think it was as superhuman as the hype made it. And how someone could blame the ref's for his poor positioning and careless fouls is a result of this hype.

[Marcus Rush]

Lets hope the touch fouls are kept to a minimum in all future games. The touch foul is a disaster for basketball. Look no further than Kevin Durant who this year made the the sixth most free throws in NBA history and made the most free throws of any player in the last 25 years. This from a third year player. Its even worse with some of the point guards as you can't even look at them wrong or they call a foul. Let point guards be point guards and run the team not drive to the basket and get the foul call. If they drive flatten them once and they will change.

[dribbles]

I think Portland has the pieces, and don't forget they're mostly a young team, but the injuries killed them this season. Roy, when healthy, is a legit superstar in this league and can create his own shot. He's a notch below Wade as far as I can tell but not that big a notch. The big question mark with that team is Oden. Defensively, I think he has the potential to be almost as good as Howard but offensively he actually seems to have a wider toolbox (and he shoots free throws better). Of course, he hasn't been able to stay healthy but hopefully he can turn it around next year. He was really starting to emerge before he went down again this season.

In any case, they look stacked to me and they're well coached. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they come out of the West next season.

[Roger]

Hello Doug,
Last year Portland was considered the best up and coming team. Do you agree that Oklahoma has taken over as the best young team this year? Watching games 3 and 4 against the Lakers makes you think that this team can be dominant for years to come.