Four out of five writers claim the Blazers are contenders on ESPN.com’s 5-on-5 roundtable, while the Hawks cannot claim a single contender title. Unfortunately for the City of Roses, the writers’ opinions did not affect the outcome of last night’s game.
In a horrendous shooting night, the Blazers came up one three pointer away from going into overtime in Atlanta against the Hawks. 38% from the field and 26% from the three will not win many games in the NBA.
As the game progressed, there was one key moment when I knew it was not the Blazers’ night. Just halfway through the second quarter, Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews were a combined 2-11 shooting and Jamal Crawford just missed a twenty foot jumper that was rebounded by LaMarcus Aldridge, only for him to turn it over during his re-post up move.
The Blazers had seven players with at least eight points. However, only three had at least ten and only Crawford and Aldridge had over twenty.
There is no superstar offensive player for the Blazers. In an off shooting night like last night, they do not have a Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant or LeBron James that can put the team on their shoulders.
That is the Blazers’ downfall.
On the upside, the Blazers do have many players that can score the ball and they are well rounded defensively. By no means is there anything major the Blazers should change in their game planning. Only being 8-6 is slightly disappointing. But there are many games yet to be played.
And despite their poor shooting efforts, it was only a loss of three points that included grabbing eight more offensive rebounds than the Hawks and getting twenty one more shots off.
What needs to be changed is not a game plan or fundamental problem. Instead, it is an attitude adjustment.
A team as talented as the Blazers losing a close game on the road like last night and half of their losses being single digit losses shows they have not achieved the winner’s mentality.
It can stem from Coach McMillan or from Aldridge, but just stemming is not enough.
It needs to be spread throughout the entire team. If the Blazers can truly get a hold of that winner’s mentality that they are the best team on the court every night, then with their well rounded team, last night as well as last year’s playoff series against the NBA champion Mavericks could both have had different outcomes.
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