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Portland Trail Blazers’ Game 1 Performance Was Pathetic

By Chris St. Jean

Apr 19, 2015; Memphis, TN, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum (88) and Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum (3) during the game against the Memphis Grizzlies in game one of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at FedExForum. Memphis Grizzlies beat Portland Trail Blazers 100 -86.Mandatory Credit: Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 19, 2015; Memphis, TN, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum (88) and Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum (3) during the game against the Memphis Grizzlies in game one of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at FedExForum. Memphis Grizzlies beat Portland Trail Blazers 100 -86.Mandatory Credit: Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports /
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On Sunday night in Memphis, the Grizzlies punched the Portland Trail Blazers in the mouth. That’s not breaking news.  There’s not much in-depth analysis for that.

From the opening tip it was obvious that the Grizzlies were playing at a pace and intensity that the Blazers were not ready to match. The Blazers offense was panicked; every seemingly open shot they took seemed rushed.

Zach Randolph frustrated LaMarcus Aldridge beyond belief. Damian Lillard was nowhere to be found. The rest of the team didn’t fare much better.

On Tuesday, LaMarcus told CSNNW that he was ‘anxious’ going into the Blazers’ Game 1 and he believed that had a trickle-down effect on his teammates.  His assessment, the Blazers need to make the following adjustment:

"“Be more confident. Slow down a little bit.”“I was so anxious to be here that even I was rushing early.”"

During the regular season, LaMarcus punished Zach Randolph to the point where theGrizzlies often had to put Marc Gasol on LMA. But in Game 1, Z-Bo sat on LaMarcus’ right side and dared him to go left towards the baseline, use his injured hand, every time in the post.  Randolph was physical with LaMarcus.

He provided a level of energy and intensity that set the tone for the entire Grizzlies team.

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But LaMarcus got his (32 points and 14 rebounds), despite the inefficiency.  It was Damian Lillard who received the majority of the criticism. Lillard showed no ability to keep Mike Conley from getting to the places that he wanted to on the court despite the fact that Conley feels like he is “constantly walking on a golf ball.”

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about why Chris Paul may be the most dangerous match up for this Blazers team because of his ability in the mid range, but Conley’s game in many ways is very similar to Chris Paul’s.  Although he doesn’t dominate the offensive sets the way Paul does, they are similar in that they are very methodical and can make the defense pay in any way necessary.

His floater is extremely effective and he finishes 56.7 percent of his field goal attempts in the restricted area according to NBA.com.  The Blazers will need to keep him outside of the restricted area as the series moves along.

Conley, and Grizzlies back up Beno Udrih, combined for 15 of 25 shooting for 36 points. And although Lillard’s defense is part of the joke when Udrih shoots 9-for-10 in the first three quarters of the game, the entire Blazers team played poorly defensively.

The Grizzlies outscored the Blazers 15-6 in fast-break points, they average only 11.8 fast-break points during the regular season, 19th in the NBA according to NBA.com. The Blazers turned the ball over 13 times and only forced eight turnovers by the Grizzlies, indicative of the rest of the season for both teams.

As bad as the Blazers were defensively, they were probably worse on the offensive end.  In the CSNNW video linked above, Aldridge agreed that Game 1 may have been the worst offensive performance the Blazers had all season.

Lillard was a microcosm of the Blazers struggles. He was criticized for his defense in the headlines but shot less than 25 percent (5-for-21) from the field in the game.

Aldridge was inefficient, Zach Randolph made him work, but it was the futility of the rest of the Blazers offense (34 percent shooting as a team) that forced LaMarcus to take 34 shots in a game.

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    • The optimist would say, those shots will fall. The Blazers can’t possibly shoot worse than they did in Game 1. While that’s true, and at times the Blazers did get open looks and miss bunnies, they were clearly out of rhythm, clearly rushed. The Grizzlies defense rattled the Blazers offense and they couldn’t recover from it.

    It may start with Aldridge and Lillard for the Blazers, and maybe as Aldridge indicated, there was a trickle-down effect, but the Blazers role players went very good either.

    Robin Lopez was ineffective against Marc Gasol, and although the Grizzlies didn’t really need his offense in Game 1, it’s a scary thing for the rest of the series.

    C.J. McCollum looked like he was playing in his very first playoff game, because he was. Nicolas Batum was not quite effective enough offensively to provide any spacing for the Blazers star players.  Steve Blake was horrendous shooting 0-4 and mostly responsible for allowing Beno to heat up.

    But the biggest concern for the Blazers is that the effort just wasn’t there. Simply put, that was a pathetic performance.

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