Blazers 89, Mavericks 93 Re-Thoughts

Another game against Dallas and another loss. The Mavs sweep the season series which saw 2 of the 3 games take place at the Rose Garden. A pretty big loss for a couple reasons. One the tie-breaker obviously goes to Dallas which in this tight race makes me nervous. Second, it erases the Laker loss and any of that positive mojo. And lastly because Dallas is now making up some major ground. Thankfully Phoenix is tanking but realize that the difference between the #3 seed and the #8 seed is 1 and 1/2 games. The difference between #4 and #8 is 1 game. That's right, 1 game is the difference between hosting a series and facing the Lakers in the first round. Scary right? Reasons why the Blazers lost last night.

• Emotional letdown early. If anything that aggression from the LA game was gone and it was gone early. The second offensive possession for Portland spoke volumes to me with Blake, Joel and LMA all missing inside the lane. I kind of figured it might be a rough one. It did not help that Portland just kept putting up jumper after jumper, neglecting the paint like a little sister. They found a way to comeback but the desire to shoot jumpers came back with a vengeance.
  

• Dallas' zone did more damage to the Blazers than marrying Kevin Federline did to Britney Spears. Goodness gracious. It was an absolute killer last night, especially during the dismal second quarter. Killed. Portland scored 19 points in that 12 minute session and could not score to save their lives. Then even when Portland had "figured" it out the offense was still stagnant. This can't become an achilles heel. Think Rudy isn't a big part of this team?
  

• After the second quarter, Dallas just made winning plays. They did, everytime Portland would come back, Dallas answered and squashed the fire out quickly. It felt like they did it at least 5 times during the game and it got to the point where I was throwing my hands in the air and almost calling it. Examples from the third quarter:
  

1. Third quarter, a Brandon Roy free throw cuts the Dallas lead to 63-60. Dirk MISSED a jumpshot (something he just did not feel like doing last night)...of course Erick Dampier gets an offensive rebound and dunks it in. 5-point lead.
   
2. Shortly after the sequence I described the Blazers withstood the storm. They were still down by three but Blake missed a three, Roy missed a layup and Dallas finally responds with a Dirk jumper and a Jason Terry three. 8-point lead.
   

Then in the fourth Jason Terry and Dirk just took turns hitting dagger after dagger.

And that was the game. Thankfully we do not have to see the Mavs anymore because frankly they have our number. Portland finished this stretch at 3-2, going 1-2 against playoff contenders. That's about what I expected last week going into this week with two bunnies (Indy and Minnesota) to help and I figured we'd have a tough time in Denver and against the Lakers. Thankfully the next 8 games are either against the Eastern Conference or Memphis, teams we have feasted on this year. The not-so-good-news? It's a 5-game road trip with 5 games in under a week. And we all know how wacky those can be. More on that later.