LTTG's view of preseason game #2

It was cool hanging with LTTG and having somebody to cheer with, and laugh at the drunk Portland fan with. The dude was obnoxious and obviously none too bright, but we had fun at his expense so it was all good.

You covered it pretty well LTTG. I was also typing up some notes and am pasting them below.

The game started out really well. Evans and Martin really made problems all over the place for Portland. I would say that Martin can be unstoppable. The guys is so quick that he moves and the man covering him ends up five feet from him giving Martin an open shot just about anytime he wanted to take it. And his shot was on. He scored and scored. They had no response or ability to stop him.

Evan came out strong and his ability to drive and finish is just solid. He was so good in the first quarter and at a few points later on that you had to stand up and cheer. I think he got a bit tired towards the end of the game, but it may have been that he didn’t play point much the second half of the game. It was all Beno Beno Beno….

Beno, hmm… I was discouraged by what I saw, but then what else is new. Beno would get the ball and would not pass it to Evan or Sergio, who played limited minutes in the 4th quarter. Evans would ask for the ball and Beno would not give it. Instead Beno would take up shot clock dribbling for little purpose and pass to somebody else if he could not drive for his own shot. It came across as him not appreciating the competition and asserting that he was the PG in charge. He made a really decent pass to a jumping Martin at the rim early on, but was otherwise not so good and much more effective when he was spot shooting off of a pass from somebody else. Sergio hit him for a sweet three that showed how best to use him.

Sergio, the guy is more of a true point guard than anybody else on the team. He is just more talented at passing than anybody else. He should have got more minutes. He made some really great plays by passing and showed flair about it, but that really was offset by some last minute mistakes. He tried to pass in heavy traffic in the last few of the game and lost a scoring opportunity through a turnover. It really is unclear if he can develop and make fewer mistakes. Clearly the talent is there.

Brockman, It was really cool to see Brockman getting under the Portland player’s skin. He is such a physical guy that things started getting chippy. A double foul was called at one point and a warning given by the refs. The dude is tough and in your face. Love it!

JT was great, but played too few minutes. He was in foul trouble, but when in he was getting tips and rebounds. Really good stuff and definitely fun to watch.

May seems a solid player and has a nice outside shot. Still not excited about him, but he does clearly has talent.

Oh man, the replacement refs had some kind of issues at a few places. Overall, they were just OK for the most part, but a few calls were truly bad. One call on Evans was just obscene, Andre Miller lunged in front of Evans coming up court and they called a foul on Evans. He wasn’t planted or anything. Also, Oden just muscled his was into JT repeatedly in the paint and back him almost right off of the court. It was just stupid to call the fouls on JT. He made some stupid fouls early on so it didn’t help when Oden was creating the contact and JT was getting additional fouls. Stupid stupid stupid…

Combination of players, Evans, Martin, and Udrich may seem like it would work, but I don’t like it. Evans is the best of these three at the PG, but need to be driving, breaking down the defense, and passing out. He has great across the court vision and passes out or back really well. You got to give him some props and hope somebody tells Udrich to let Evans, or Sergio, run the plays.

Udrich wants to run the show and instead of getting assists at PG he seems more likely to try to create his own shots. It was frustrating to watch Beno repeatedly not see Omri open. I would really like to see Sergio, Evans, and Martin play this three guard gig. I think it would work better.

Omri really is a very good player (as LTTG says the real deal). He didn’t score much tonight, but he wasn’t getting passes when he was wide open. The passing needed to be there for him and it just wasn’t. Sergio hit him for a really good shot, but Beno missed several wide open threes that he probably would have made. Wide open, feet set, and ready to go. Just needed the ball…

Let’s see, other players… Ely played a couple of minutes and wasn’t effective. Garcia didn’t play that long either. I am not sure why. He played 33 minutes last night.

That is about all I got. We should get enough people together to get group tickets. Maybe we can enough people together to leverage a Q&A session with the coaching staff… Now that would be cool. Otherwise, I hope to kick it with LTTG again sometime.

A question: What kind of turnovers was Tyreke making? Was it simply errant passing or offensive fouls? Listening a bit to the radio after work, it sounded like a lot of people were upset with the refereeing and Tyreke got a few bad offensive fouls called, which would add to his turnovers.

What can ya tell this homer Blazer fan about Oden’s game tonight?

I know he’s just a lot bigger than who you had tonight, but how did his conditioning look, his speed, quickness, etc…

Tyreke for ROY.

Morty

oh, one who lies to females. rec’d. And I agree we could use another center.

Thanks for sharing.

LTTG and Mustang. Great stuff.

It doesn’t really seem to matter who there guarding it. He doesn’t seem that quick – but he’s very shifty, and got by his defender on the perimeter whether they were bigger or smaller and quick (usually Bayless, who is very quick).
And – he’s strong enough to go right in with the big guys and put it up.

Also as Mustang said, Evans is a guy who seems to be able to take a lot of things away from Brandon Roy. You know how teams now try to have a guy who can play Kobe? He’s a very good match-up for Roy, he frustrated him some, which should pay some dividends when the whole team is better and we’re playing for something in years to come.

He’s been playing well and I’d like to see him get minutes against quality players. The Lakers would be a good opponent to test him out on. And honestly, one of his supposed weaknesses coming into the NBA was supposed to be his shooting, but his stroke has just seems magnificent to me from watching the open practice and various video highlights. He really must have put a lot of work into it.

First, I thought there was a lot of people at Arco, way more than I expected that’s for sure. I guess the whole no games on TV might work for the league, or maybe it’s just for the first game, who knows? Anyways, the crowd was pretty into the game and it got really exciting at the end. I know I was standing up and rooting the team during the comeback. It’s easy to tell that some people (at least the ones I talked to or heard talking) are excited about Tyreke and the direction of this team in general. That’s a great thing if you ask me. This team needs a lot of support, especially with the whole arena situation .

Obnoxious fans: I’m not sure where you guys were sitting lttg but did you notice the 2 douchebags sitting around section 102, I think, drunk out of their minds, getting up after every Blazer basket and messing with people around them? I wanted to run all the way from section 105 and punch those idiots in the face so bad it’s not even funny. Anyone watches Tool Academy?? I guess I found a new species, the Blazer tool.

Anyways… about the game

Reke, reke, reke…. ohh boy this kid makes me dream. He got to the rim at will (we knew that) and against anyone (Roy, Miller, Bayless, Udoka); it was such a nice thing to see. Yes, there’s still things to improve (he dribbles a little too high, and is still developing his court vision, and ohh yeah, that shot too) but whoever said he couldn’t run the team will be surprised once they see him. I’m not saying you’re wrong if you are not convinced, but I was skeptical too and came back very impressed. He was vocal, calling out plays, moving the ball, and trying to get teammates involved. He is not the ball hog some people may think he will be. To me, you can tell when players are looking to get his, he doesn’t come off like that. Many times he went to the basket only to kick it out to shooters; he seems to understand well he needs to get the ball moving. As far as turnovers, as said before, a couple were offensive fouls, once he dribbled the ball off his foot or something, another one was a bullet pass cross court that was intercepted, and I can’t remember what else. All TOs not big of a deal, but things he will get better at. One more thing before I forget, he played good D against Roy. I can clearly recall an iso play where Reke was able to go one on one and played great D. Small simple size? Definitely. Encouraging because he has the tools to stay in front of one of the best players of this league as a rook? You bet. I’m so excited about this kid and I haven’t even started raving about his backcourt mate

Kevin was his ‘Speed’ self last night, making the game look so easy. My buddy that went with me to the game (a Blazers fan) told me he knew Martin was good but he didn’t know he was THAT good. I have to definitely agree with that assessment. This is gonna piss some people off but whatever… if you really think we should trade Kevin Martin, for anything else than a all star, then you either haven’t seen him live and don’t understand this guy’s game or you are just plain stupid, very stupid. To understand Kevin, you have to appreciate the things he does so well on the court: score. He just makes it look easy. He doesn’t demand the ball that much, he doesn’t take bad shots, and he is just SO efficient. He’s not a superstar, he’s far from a complete player, he will not be a number 1 option on a championship team, WE KNOT THAT. But he’s SO good at what he does that it’s crazy to think you want to give that up. Healthy, he can give you 25 a night without breaking a sweat. If you really don’t believe and think I’m just another homer, just go to Arco and watch him play.

Enough with the dreamy backcourt. I’m going to start crying of happiness.

JT had a tough game. Oden is a horrible matchup for him (and anyone really). I’m not ready to say he’s that good of a player. He’s just huge (Oden that is) and is hard to stop such a big guy. JT picked up at least 3, even 4 of his fouls against Oden so that’s why he was so off.Part of me thinks we need another big body, but the other part thinks we are not going to face Oden, Shaq, and Dwight Howard every night. I don’t think Ely makes the team, even when we need bigs, but I think we get a big guy from D League or something. Or maybe Fesenko, right Aykis?

Mancakes was great to see in person. Love that dude already. He has the nose for the ball and knows where to be on the floor to get the rebound. That’s why he got to the line so much. He will get some minutes this season, guaranteed. Meet him after the game too, it was pretty cool. My buddy told him we knew he liked to eat pancakes, and even recommended a good joint in Sac for him to get ‘em. I told him we saw the video haha. Really cool guy.

On that note, eventhough he didn’t play, I meet Doratio Kane as well. You could tell he wasn’t in an awesome mood but I joked with him and called him "Buckets" and he said "You know how it is already, huh?" He signed nice autograph for the wifey too so that was cool. Told him we were all expecting big things this season.

Noc was off all night. Shot too many 3s and never got into the flow of the game. Pretty disappointing performance although the Blazers are a tough matchup for him.

Beno, I thought, did well and looks like the numbers back that up. He was still his "Tazmanian Slovenian" self with crazy spins to the hoop and attacking big men having no idea what to do with the ball, but he made some shots and did his best to run the team. Whether he or Sergio are the backup I think is going to depend on matchups. For now, I think Beno gets the nod from coach Westphal.

Cisco was quiet and I gotta be honest, I’m a bit worried he may be tired from playing this summer. Hope he’s just saving energy for the real thing.

Omri is going to be a big fan favorite (but we already know that). I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t that impressed until those last couple minutes. I’m not a believer yet. I think he can be good down the road, but we need to be patient with his development. Hope he proves me wrong and comes out ready for big minutes this seasonbecause that’ll be awesome for this team, but it’s just going to be tough at first. I’m definitely rooting for the guy though, he brings a lot to the table.

Refs were horrible, I yelled the whole game we need the real refs back. Hope they heard.

I’m probably forgetting a bunch of stuff but I wrote waaayyyy too much already so if it comes I’ll keep commenting. Great to see some basketball again. I’m really excited for this team. We are still bad guys, no way around it, but we are going to surprise some teams for sure.

Go Kings!