That’ll do, Blazers. That’ll do.
After running on fumes for the past six months, the Portland Trail Blazers ended their season last night, falling to a vastly superior Phoenix Suns team by a score of 99-90. While he was in the starting lineup, Brandon Roy clearly was not his old self, and an aggressive Suns’ defense scheme kept Portland’s starters off the scoreboard (their bench outscored them, 49-41) for the majority of the night. As was the case throughout the series, Jason Richardson scored at will (28 points, including five three-pointers) and the Suns overcame an off-night from Steve Nash (more turnovers than assists, you won’t see that happen again) and now advance to the second round against their longtime postseason rivals, the San Antonio Spurs.
While it wasn’t enough to break their decade-long streak of first round playoff exits, Portland did have a remarkable season (all injuries considered). Good job, Blazers.
* As I mentioned in last night’s blog, we’ll be covering the team throughout this sure-to-be-dramaitc offseason. This includes everything from the Kevin Pritchard situation (DO NOT fire that man), the upcoming draft, free-agency, and the Summer League in Las Vegas. Stick around.
No worries, Blazers. You guys had a wonderful season and defeated many, many obstacles along the way. Thanks so much for yet another outstanding season. Next year, baby!
RIP CITY!!!
They have to ax Nate or give the offense to someone else. Nate’s playoff offensive tactics go like this. Toss the ball to Brandon and everyone else just watch what he does. How many games did it take him to figure out he should start Miller over Blake?
Brandon barely touched the ball last night.
See you next year when RIP CITY rises again!
Can we trade Oden and Fernandez yet?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Now the Spurs have to play the Suns. Damn it, Portland 🙁
Yah – we get our bars back from stoopid blazer fans. Hooray!
@Jackattack
Brandon shot 4-16 and 1-8 from the 3 point line. LaMarginal was 5-17. How can you say Brandon barely touched the ball when he shot more than anyone else on the team except for the other guy who gets paid a lot, has two healthy knees, and vanishes when it comes down to crunch time.
Man, it sure didn’t seem like he had the ball that often. At all. But then, I guess that’s B-Roy’s style. One second the kid’s got 4 points and the next he’s got 22, and you’re left wondering “when did that happen?”
I stand (heavily) corrected.
BlackedOut – I only caught the last ten minutes of this game. It was so sad to see what should have been an attempt at a strong offensive drive to close the gap turn into every possession having Roy standing there dribbling on the outside, letting the clock wind down, then passing it to a barely open player with 5 seconds on the clock (a player still on the outside), who then gets double-teamed and shoots a lousy shot. Suns get the ball and they find a player under the basket, nearly every play.
The Blazers offensive strategy has been crappy like this all season. It’s clearly not very effective!
I love the Blazers, but this style of play is so frustrating to watch.
The Blazers offense just doesn’t work in the playoffs. I’ve heard it before somewhere and I think it’s true. We should be running a motion offense like Utah runs. We’d kill people with our talent level. Utah has some talent but not that much. They’re up 3-2 on a much more talented Denver team and they have 2 of their top 5 players out with injuries. Christ Krylo fucking Fesenko is starting for them and they’re winning with that offense.
It kills me that Nate is going to get another contract because of all these injuries. He didn’t know what the hell to do with the team when they weren’t hurt. Nate didn’t have the slightest clue what to do with Oden.
Great, those illegal alien-hating Suns won. So much for the boycott of Arizona.
There were at least two “boycott” related signs last night at the game.
One read, “Boycott the Suns” and the other “Boycott Phoenix”. I thought they were a nice touch! Both made the KGW telecast (and really, why wouldn’t they)