Keeping Faith

I know that the Portland Trail Blazers can play better than they have been all season long. They seem to have the same feeling. After the loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the players called for a player’s only meeting. This tells me that they are not ready to give up. This is a team that I can believe in.

Every team is going to go through some hiccups throughout a season. For the Blazers, that time is now. They have had some bad shooting nights, sloppy play, and a few injuries. Once they get through these, this is going to be a good team. This is going to be a tough team.

I don’t know what else to tell these guys that aren’t shooting particularly well except, keep shooting. These are NBA players, they didn’t make it this far just because. They have the talent. The best way I like to get out of a shooting slump is to keep shooting. You will eventually find your shot. Do I want them to take 20 shots a night until they find it? No, we still need to take quality shots when the opportunity presents itself and play within the system. One thing they can do is to stick around after practice when their legs are feeling heavy and get those shots up then.

We have had some sloppy play this season that has resulted in way too many turnovers. There’s one play I noticed last game (against the Hawks) that we are not talking about. Wesley Mathews had a steal or rebound and was going up the court, with a couple of Hawks players and Gerald Wallace behind him – he was then picked from behind. That led to an alley-oop for the Hawks. On a play like that, Wallace has to see that and communicate with Wesley. So start talking on the court guys, I’m sure that will cut down a few turnovers a game. Also, stay within yourself. Don’t push the ball down the court so hard that you’re out of control (Raymond Felton).

Marcus Camby’s injury came at a bad time. We sure could have used him in these past road losses. If he didn’t go down with that injury, could we have beaten the Spurs? Possibly. But they did play an amazing 4^th quarter, and we played the opposite of that. We could have won in Houston with him. Against the Hawks, we also were without Nicolas Batum after he left the game in the 2^nd quarter with an injury. No Camby, no Batum, and we still managed to keep it close against a top East Coast team on the road. You have to feel pretty good about that.

If we can compete in these game while playing like we have. Think about how we are going to play when we are healthy. Think about how we are going to play when everything starts to click, our shots are going down, and we’re not turning over the ball. This is a good team. This is a tough team. We will be fine.