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NBA High-5: After Lakers trounce Blazers, many note that Brandon Roy doesn't seem right
Published: Monday, November 08, 2010, 10:17 AM Updated: Monday, November 08, 2010, 10:19 AM
Mike Tokito, The Oregonian Mike Tokito, The Oregonian
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SP.BROY.JPGBruce Ely/The OregonianBrandon Roy had eight points and shot 1 for 6 from the field against the Lakers on Sunday.
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The five most interesting stories, rumors and notes in the NBA:
1. What's wrong with BRoy? NBA-TV was showing highlights of Sunday's Blazers-Lakers game, with plenty of clips from Pau Gasol's triple-double, when Brent Barry cut in to ask, "You're telling me we don't have one Portland Trail Blazers highlight in this package of highlights?"
Turns out there wasn't as the Lakers absolutely demolished the Blazers 121-96.
After some losses, a team will chew on the defeat trying to figure out what went wrong. After others, the losing team decides the winner was just too much on that particular night and just put the game in the rearview mirror.
It appears the Blazers are taking the latter approach. "We have to move on," coach Nate McMillan said. "We got kicked tonight."
I wrote this morning about the Blazers' ongoing TV dilemma with Comcast, but for once, those who missed the game because they don't get CSN on DirecTV or Dish can count their blessings.
It appears, however, that there will be fallout from this one as talk intensified about Blazers guard Brandon Roy after his poor performance. The O's Jason Quick wrote a column about it in which Roy admitted he wasn't 100 percent physically.
Others noticed that Roy just didn't seem his old self. Ron Artest, who guarded Roy and has usually had a high opinion of him, speculated that Roy has an undisclosed back or knee injury, telling the Orange County Register's Kevin Ding, "I’ve played against Brandon Roy a lot of times. He wasn’t himself."
Lakers coach Phil Jackson added about Roy's eight-point, 1-for-6 performance: "I'm not so sure that's all our making. He looked to me like he was not ready to attack as much as he normally is. It looked to me like he was a little bit hesitant out there, and they had other things going on with Miler and Batum, basically."
It should be noted that the Lakers are playing fantastic basketball, with Pau Gasol making a case for MVP consideration and, as McMillan said, Lamar Odom playing like an All-Star.
The Blazers are taking today off as the focus shifts to the memorial service for Maurice Lucas, which starts at noon at Memorial Coliseum. And then ...
2. Next up, the not-so-struggling Pistons: A week ago, the Blazers' game Tuesday looked as if it would be one of those gimme games against a struggling opponent. The Pistons, after all, were 0-5 at the time and having internal squabbling between players and coach John Kuester.
Guess what? The Pistons have seemingly gotten their stuff together and have won two in row coming into the Rose Garden. Point guard Rodney Stuckey, who twice refused to answer when Kuester called him during a stoppage in play against Atlanta, seems to have had a short stay in the doghouse.
Stuckey was bench for most of the second half against the Hawks, then for the entire game against Charlotte on Friday, when the Pistons got a 97-90 win for their first victory of the season. Then Stuckey and Kuester basically pushed their differences aside, and Stuckey returned to the starting lineup.
With Stuckey chipping in 21 points and nine assists, the Pistons beat Golden State 102-97.
The whole thing seemed quite strange as Stuckey, who used the tear up the Big Sky Conference with Eastern Washington, has a reputation as a solid citizen. It had to hurt some that the Pistons did not sign him to an extension, allowing him to become a restricted free agent at the end of the season.
SP.MONTYCP3.JPGAPCoach Monty Williams and point guard Chris Paul lead the still-unbeaten Hornets.
3. And then, back on the road: After playing the Pistons, the Blazers hit the road again, and the task will be considerably tougher than the four-game trip they went on in which they went 3-1.
On Friday, Portland is at Oklahoma City for a rematch against the Thunder, who beat the Blazers 107-106 in overtime last Thursday. Then the next night -- yes, another back-to-back, Blazers' third in the season's first three weeks -- Portland is at New Orleans to face the Hornets, who still are unbeaten.
The Hornets beat Milwaukee 87-81 Saturday. In between that game and the Saturday's against Portland, they will have played one game, at home against the Clippers on Tuesday. In that same stretch, the Blazers will have played the Lakers in the second game of a back-to-back, played the Pistons, then played at Oklahoma City the night before.
New coach Monty Williams, the former Blazers assistant, has the Hornets playing good team basketball, and Chris Paul is playing at a very high level, averaging 18.3 points and 10.2 assists. Paul got a Twitter thumbs up from his buddy, LeBron James, who tweeted Saturday, one day after Paul had 13 points and 19 assists in a 96-93 win over James' Heat: "All this talk need to stop people! @Oneandonlycp3 [Paul's Twitter handle] is BACK and is the BEST point guard in the league."
The Blazers then finally catch a scheduling break with two days off before playing at Memphis on Tuesday, Nov. 16. The Grizzlies play at Orlando the night before.
4. Still a free agent: The season is two weeks old, and the supposedly most coveted free agent is still available. Erick Dampier remains on the market as the Houston Rockets, who reached an agreement to sign the veteran center on Oct. 29 pending clearing a roster spot for him, have opted not to sign Dampier.
The Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen reports that second-year guard Jermaine Taylor, who was supposed to have been traded or waived to make room for Dampier, was been told he will stay with the Rockets.
The Rockets have more pressing concerns, including a 1-5 start and an ankle injury to point guard Aaron Brooks. The former University of Oregon star is out four to six weeks after spraining his left ankle by stepping on Manu Ginobili's foot during the Rockets' overtime loss to the Spurs on Saturday. The injury ends Brooks' streak of 119 consecutive games played.
Houston also is missing backup point guard Kyle Lowry (back), so on Sunday the Rockets started undrafted rookie Ish Smith against Minnesota. Smith, who used to go by Ishmael Smith at Wake Forest, had seven points, six assists and a turnover in 42 minutes as the Rockets beat the hapless Timberwolves 120-94 to get their first win of the season.
Smith also played 35 minutes after Brooks was injured against the Spurs, so a player who totaled 13 minutes all season before that logged 77 minutes in his last two games. Is it any wonder the Rockets didn't bother with Dampier?
5. How to retire: What does a player do after he decides to retire from the NBA? If you're brief Blazers center Fabricio Oberto, who on Thursday announced his retirement after struggling with symptoms of a heart condition, you go to San Antonio.
The San Antonio Express-New' Mike Monroe reports Oberto showed up in San Antonio on Friday and went out to dinner with fellow Argentinians Manu Ginobili of the Spurs and Luis Scola of the Rockets, who was in town for a game. The three were key parts of Argentina's 2004 Olympic gold medal team.
The threesome invited Spurs rookie center Tiago Splitter, a Brazilian along for dinner at an Italian restaurant.
Fuck the Lakers
Published: Monday, November 08, 2010, 10:17 AM Updated: Monday, November 08, 2010, 10:19 AM
Mike Tokito, The Oregonian Mike Tokito, The Oregonian
Follow
Share this story
Story tools
SP.BROY.JPGBruce Ely/The OregonianBrandon Roy had eight points and shot 1 for 6 from the field against the Lakers on Sunday.
0Share
21 Comments
The five most interesting stories, rumors and notes in the NBA:
1. What's wrong with BRoy? NBA-TV was showing highlights of Sunday's Blazers-Lakers game, with plenty of clips from Pau Gasol's triple-double, when Brent Barry cut in to ask, "You're telling me we don't have one Portland Trail Blazers highlight in this package of highlights?"
Turns out there wasn't as the Lakers absolutely demolished the Blazers 121-96.
After some losses, a team will chew on the defeat trying to figure out what went wrong. After others, the losing team decides the winner was just too much on that particular night and just put the game in the rearview mirror.
It appears the Blazers are taking the latter approach. "We have to move on," coach Nate McMillan said. "We got kicked tonight."
I wrote this morning about the Blazers' ongoing TV dilemma with Comcast, but for once, those who missed the game because they don't get CSN on DirecTV or Dish can count their blessings.
It appears, however, that there will be fallout from this one as talk intensified about Blazers guard Brandon Roy after his poor performance. The O's Jason Quick wrote a column about it in which Roy admitted he wasn't 100 percent physically.
Others noticed that Roy just didn't seem his old self. Ron Artest, who guarded Roy and has usually had a high opinion of him, speculated that Roy has an undisclosed back or knee injury, telling the Orange County Register's Kevin Ding, "I’ve played against Brandon Roy a lot of times. He wasn’t himself."
Lakers coach Phil Jackson added about Roy's eight-point, 1-for-6 performance: "I'm not so sure that's all our making. He looked to me like he was not ready to attack as much as he normally is. It looked to me like he was a little bit hesitant out there, and they had other things going on with Miler and Batum, basically."
It should be noted that the Lakers are playing fantastic basketball, with Pau Gasol making a case for MVP consideration and, as McMillan said, Lamar Odom playing like an All-Star.
The Blazers are taking today off as the focus shifts to the memorial service for Maurice Lucas, which starts at noon at Memorial Coliseum. And then ...
2. Next up, the not-so-struggling Pistons: A week ago, the Blazers' game Tuesday looked as if it would be one of those gimme games against a struggling opponent. The Pistons, after all, were 0-5 at the time and having internal squabbling between players and coach John Kuester.
Guess what? The Pistons have seemingly gotten their stuff together and have won two in row coming into the Rose Garden. Point guard Rodney Stuckey, who twice refused to answer when Kuester called him during a stoppage in play against Atlanta, seems to have had a short stay in the doghouse.
Stuckey was bench for most of the second half against the Hawks, then for the entire game against Charlotte on Friday, when the Pistons got a 97-90 win for their first victory of the season. Then Stuckey and Kuester basically pushed their differences aside, and Stuckey returned to the starting lineup.
With Stuckey chipping in 21 points and nine assists, the Pistons beat Golden State 102-97.
The whole thing seemed quite strange as Stuckey, who used the tear up the Big Sky Conference with Eastern Washington, has a reputation as a solid citizen. It had to hurt some that the Pistons did not sign him to an extension, allowing him to become a restricted free agent at the end of the season.
SP.MONTYCP3.JPGAPCoach Monty Williams and point guard Chris Paul lead the still-unbeaten Hornets.
3. And then, back on the road: After playing the Pistons, the Blazers hit the road again, and the task will be considerably tougher than the four-game trip they went on in which they went 3-1.
On Friday, Portland is at Oklahoma City for a rematch against the Thunder, who beat the Blazers 107-106 in overtime last Thursday. Then the next night -- yes, another back-to-back, Blazers' third in the season's first three weeks -- Portland is at New Orleans to face the Hornets, who still are unbeaten.
The Hornets beat Milwaukee 87-81 Saturday. In between that game and the Saturday's against Portland, they will have played one game, at home against the Clippers on Tuesday. In that same stretch, the Blazers will have played the Lakers in the second game of a back-to-back, played the Pistons, then played at Oklahoma City the night before.
New coach Monty Williams, the former Blazers assistant, has the Hornets playing good team basketball, and Chris Paul is playing at a very high level, averaging 18.3 points and 10.2 assists. Paul got a Twitter thumbs up from his buddy, LeBron James, who tweeted Saturday, one day after Paul had 13 points and 19 assists in a 96-93 win over James' Heat: "All this talk need to stop people! @Oneandonlycp3 [Paul's Twitter handle] is BACK and is the BEST point guard in the league."
The Blazers then finally catch a scheduling break with two days off before playing at Memphis on Tuesday, Nov. 16. The Grizzlies play at Orlando the night before.
4. Still a free agent: The season is two weeks old, and the supposedly most coveted free agent is still available. Erick Dampier remains on the market as the Houston Rockets, who reached an agreement to sign the veteran center on Oct. 29 pending clearing a roster spot for him, have opted not to sign Dampier.
The Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen reports that second-year guard Jermaine Taylor, who was supposed to have been traded or waived to make room for Dampier, was been told he will stay with the Rockets.
The Rockets have more pressing concerns, including a 1-5 start and an ankle injury to point guard Aaron Brooks. The former University of Oregon star is out four to six weeks after spraining his left ankle by stepping on Manu Ginobili's foot during the Rockets' overtime loss to the Spurs on Saturday. The injury ends Brooks' streak of 119 consecutive games played.
Houston also is missing backup point guard Kyle Lowry (back), so on Sunday the Rockets started undrafted rookie Ish Smith against Minnesota. Smith, who used to go by Ishmael Smith at Wake Forest, had seven points, six assists and a turnover in 42 minutes as the Rockets beat the hapless Timberwolves 120-94 to get their first win of the season.
Smith also played 35 minutes after Brooks was injured against the Spurs, so a player who totaled 13 minutes all season before that logged 77 minutes in his last two games. Is it any wonder the Rockets didn't bother with Dampier?
5. How to retire: What does a player do after he decides to retire from the NBA? If you're brief Blazers center Fabricio Oberto, who on Thursday announced his retirement after struggling with symptoms of a heart condition, you go to San Antonio.
The San Antonio Express-New' Mike Monroe reports Oberto showed up in San Antonio on Friday and went out to dinner with fellow Argentinians Manu Ginobili of the Spurs and Luis Scola of the Rockets, who was in town for a game. The three were key parts of Argentina's 2004 Olympic gold medal team.
The threesome invited Spurs rookie center Tiago Splitter, a Brazilian along for dinner at an Italian restaurant.
Fuck the Lakers
