Blazers vs Nets - Preview
Ezra Ace Caraeff | Monday, February 22, 2010 at 8:54PM
Welcome to the most important game… IN THE FUTURE OF EVER.
Pardon the hyperbole, and the Derrick Coleman image, but this is serious. Normally a visit to the Garden State is synonymous with a quick victory, but just for the sake of celebrating the half empty glass, let’s just say the Blazers lose to the Nets in the Izod Center: the season is over, right? Already teetering on the brink of the ping pong ball dance that is the draft lottery, Portland has dropped five of their last eight games and their playoff position is about as healthy as Brandon Roy’s battered hamstring. Losing to a team that has five victories on the year—for the sake of comparison, the Blazers picked up victory number five on November 10th of last year—might be enough to drastically change this team’s future. No playoffs. Roy to the bench. Webster out the door. The Trail Breakers taking up line dancing. Big changes.
Hence, the importance of this game.
New Jersey is, well, let’s just say that John Wall will look absolutely dashing in a Nets uniform next year. The worst thing to happen to Jay-Z since Kingdom Come, the Nets shouldn’t be the type of team that goes winless for over a month straight (November), but the combination of injuries, bad luck, and poor play have sunk the team to the deepest dregs of the standings. Brooke Lopez, Devin Harris, Yi Jianlian, Courtney Lee… this team really is not that bad. Yet they have lost seven in a row in their building, plus 11 of the past 12 as well. Just when the Nets hit rock bottom, the floor gives way and they fall another story.
The Nets score an NBA low 90 points a game—Portland isn’t that much better at 97 PPG—and they seem to have already gotten their lone monthly win out of their system (beating Charlotte last week). The last time Portland lost in New Jersey they had Viktor Khryapa in their starting five, since then, the Blazers have won the last three games on the Nets’ court. If they fail to take number four, things are going to get worse before they get better.
Reader Comments (5)
Yi Jianlian IS that bad. He's fucking horrible. I can't stand watching him jack up silly shots like that old guy playing ball at the Y who's convinced he's just one shot away from catching fire, except he NEVER CATCHES FIRE.
He's uncoordinated, knows the offense after two years about as well as Marcus Camby knows the Blazer offense after two games, and just looks completely and utterly lost on the court. He doesn't understand basketball the same way I don't understand ballroom dancing. Sure, I can keep a beat and my ass looks good in my Victorian-era knickers, but I don't know where to be to pick up that twirl-pass-bow-wow what a raunchy look Ms. Habersham!-twirl-bow-bow.
Yi inherently doesn't understand where to be, how to space out the floor, how to look for a pass, how imagine a pass could even be coming, where to go for boards, why you'd cut (or cut at all) this way or that depending on where the ball went.
Part of all this is Kiki's horrible, awful, holy-shit how are you still alive, much less coaching, job of running the team. But that's like blaming your lecherous high school math teacher for spending more time leering at the little girls than helping you learn your times tables. Sure, he could've helped, but the book's right there, you lazy good for nothing little shit. Here's some bootstraps, figure out who or what to pull with them.
Wow, but I just have one question: Bill, is Yi any good?
Ezra, you said it right. This game, one that you would have ignored on the calendar at the start of the year, is incredibly important. In fact, it's so important in a "win-is-expected-loss-is-disaster" sort of way, that I don't even want to watch it. I can't see anything to be gained by watching it... it can only end in tears or a quiet satisfaction of an extra 1 in the W column.
That said, of course I'll be watching. This is basketball. Blazers basketball.
-- mookie
Tell us how you really feel, right?
Sorry. When you're stuck watching the league's most terrible team -- possibly of all-time -- it's easy to snap when said team's worst player is mentioned as a "plus." It looks like he's a goddamn cancer in the locker rooml. He drifts off to a stationary bike when he's yanked from the floor (a la Dennis Rodman in full-fledged poopy pants-mode) & doesn't even bother to wander back to the huddle during timeouts.
Complete douchebag.
THAT BEING SAID. I can't wait for the game tonight. For as many times as I've seen the Nets flounder, I'm a little nervous about the Blazers tonight. Something doesn't feel right.
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