Recap: Blazers dominate the Rockets, showing off just what we've been waiting for

As we all remember from watching the Spurs in the 2014 NBA Finals a few weeks ago, witnessing a group of men play team basketball is such a satisfying experience.

Watching people whipping the ball around to each other, communicating together on some other plane of thought and speech, where they all become one mind, anticipate each other’s moves, and eventually all accomplish a goal together, through one shared effort, one coordinated, directed attack—it can’t get any better.  Individual highlights are great, dunks and crossovers and acrobatic airborne pyrotechnics.  The physical grace of a lone athlete can be stunning.  But all that is nothing compared to when five men work together and attain their goal, doggedly, but determinedly, without letup, without pity, with maximum efficiency.

The Blazers weren’t anything near this yesterday in their Summer League game against the Rockets.

But they indeed were a team yesterday, when they beat the Rockets 75-67.

Not a small accomplishment, especially considering they didn’t look like that at all in their first game of Summer League against New York.  Then, they were uncoordinated, confused, muddled, distracted by each other rather than brought more into focus, enabled, enhanced.  They weren’t coordinated, they miscued each other, they turned the ball over like it was some kind of hot stereo they didn’t want to be caught with.

Yesterday, by contrast, the members of the Summer League squad showed up as a unit, a flowing, internally organized system of domination.  They ran plays, executed efficiently, made the extra pass, moved in sequence, chattered continually.  There were some hiccups and hitches, gaffes and glitches.  But let’s just ignore those for a second, pretend they never happened.  Because when things were working, they were working really well, almost so well that you forgot about the other stuff.  The biggest problem that seemed to rear its foul ugly head in the first game, was utterly decapitated.  Hopefully that will be enough to kill it off for good.

The first half of the game found the Blazers thoroughly in command.  Bobby Brown ran most of the point play, though Will Barton had the go-ahead to take over and push the ball himself if he liked.  The squad is getting better at this switcheroo, which will be a crucial element in the Blazers’ offense next year: like Phoenix, with its devastating interchangeable of combination of Dragic and Bledsoe, the Blazers will run an alternating point guard/two-guard system.  The effect was already somewhat visible here in the summer League: not giving the Rockets any room to hide a poor defender on the point guard, the Blazers took apart their ability to adequately set their defense, which gave them room to focus on running more plays than they did last game.

This was by far—as other recaps of the game have noted—the most pleasing feature of the game, and what made the Blazers look more like they were all on the same page.  Barton called plays a lot, and they gave plays some time and space to develop.  It was not uncommon in this game against the Rockets to see three passes or more during a possession.  All this kept the floor spread, made screens more crisp, and generally allowed people to get open more.  The team got off 68 shots the whole game (not including free throws) of which they made 25, and 17 threes, of which they made four.  There were many more good looks at the basket as results of plays, and many more baskets in the paint.

Indeed, it looked as if, besides running plays, the Blazers specifically set out to pass the ball more and pass it more effectively.  The 20 turnovers last game were a very large problem—almost as big of a problem as the fact that Thomas Robinson alone accounted for more than half of them.  Today, Robinson—who only had three turnovers—as well as the team in general, were more on point.  The passes were accurate, the passes were smart.  A not untypical play in the fourth went like so: Brown brings the ball down, makes a pass to Freeland, who curls around a screen from Brown towards the free throw line; he’s open, but he immediately passes it out to McCollum at the top of the key and sets a screen for him; McCollum curls himself to the free throw line, where he has plenty of room to get off a shot, but then hesitates, draws a defender out of the paint to him to contest, then fires a bounce pass another pass into Freeland who was rolling to the hoop.  Two extra passes, effectively, which end up with Freeland going up right next to the basket, rather than from ten feet away, and drawing a foul. There were ten assists this game, a not insignificant number.  Even Freeland himself—not the best or most frequent passer in the world—was dishing the thing well, ending up with one sweet, sweet assist to Brown for a nice three in the third quarter.

Defense, also, looked much better in the first half.  In the second half, things got a little iffier: the Rockets started hurling the rock at the hoop from deep outside—way deep, often a foot behind the line or more—in an effort to spread the floor.  The Blazers weren’t getting out on them fast enough.  And some went in.  This led to a bizarre 18-2 run—featuring three threes from Andre Dawkins—which threatened the Blazer’s lead.  While they led the Rockets 41-33 at halftime, at the end of the third the score had changed to 54-61.

This didn’t quite seem to stop the defensive coordination that the Blazers displayed.  They simply got out more on the long balls and put more pressure on the kickouts postmarked to outside shooters.  Thomas Robinson—who played an amazing defensive game, to add to a overall much-improved offensive performance—was visible jumping out to his man way outside on the wing as soon as the ball got there, and getting back into help position with blazing speed, throughout the fourth.  This tightened up the effort and removed the threat, eventually giving the better-looking team the victory.

While the Blazers shined individually in their previous game, here they weren’t as spectacular.  Each of their efforts ended up being much more of a contribution to the win, however, as they were directed more towards making the team work better.

Will Barton was again passing the ball well, running the point, and generally keeping control of the whole Blazers operation firmly in his grip.  Things never too disorganized.  There were a couple of ambitious passes at the end of the third, perhaps made with an eye towards changing the horrible momentum of the game, which had shifted.  But besides that, Barton looked in command.  He also kept some flow going in the game, making sure that control didn’t stagnate into rigidity.  He played smart, and reacted well to double-teams: in the fourth, he effectively forced his defenders into a situation where they let Robinson slip an incoming screen—it was a deft adjustment caused by picking the ball up and inviting a trap, but then lobbing the thing to Robinson, who took the cue to cut quickly.   Little things like that—little smart moves—show Barton is really acclimating to the point role, and to having the ball in his hands in general.

As far as shooting Barton didn’t have the best day: he went five for 15 and one for four on three-pointers.  He still relies too much on mid-air gymnastics in his shorter shots near the free throw line or on the baseline, when he could essentially be doing something like a floater instead.  Normally, he goes up and clutches the ball before putting it up the shot off, but this involves so much movement and so many moving parts it isn’t a surprise they don’t often go in, even with open looks.  Neverthelesss, he had a good game in general: he ended up with 12 points, 3 assists, and 7 rebounds.  He hit another three in the fourth when C.J. took over the point and they ran an inbounds play for him—another promising sign not only that he is shooting well that he is taking full advantage of his quickness on off-ball movement.  And he had the play of the game—and it was a play—in which he ran the Blazers’ sneaky inbounds play underneath the basket: he simply curled around a screen for a quick alley-oop that C.J. lobbed his way, and slammed the thing down with force, making the crowd go bananas.

Thomas Robinson is again looking absolutely wonderful in his shooting, showing patience and poise when he gets the ball.  Robinson went 4-10, snagged a whopping 12 rebounds, and totaled up 14 points when all the free throws were worked in there—three of which he earned hilariously, chucking the ball to the basket at the end of the first half from down by the Rockets’ end of the court, and getting fouled in the act somehow to shoot three.  His passing vision continues to astound, only the execution isn’t always as good as the idea: he keeps getting the ball to cutters near the basket or wide open for a good shot, except only getting it somewhat in their general vicinity, so that they have to scoop it up or bobble it before they can do anything to it.  This loses precious time that could be used to score.

Joel Freeland had an excellent game, scoring 13 points and bringing down 9 rebounds.  He went four for nine.  He played great defense, as usual, and came away with a big swat of a block that was satisfying to watch.  He is still not hitting that 15 foot baseline jumper, which, if he put it away consistently, would make him a great threat and earn him more minutes next year, when he’s going to be sat in favor of Kaman, who makes this without hesitation.  Most impressive, though, and really promising, is quite simply his fitness.  Maybe it is the summer league jerseys, but he looks fitter than ever.   He put on some bulk last year, turned his size (which had gotten a little out of hand) into muscle.  He thinned down and bulked up.  But now he looks lean—something you couldn’t have said of him last year even.  And the way he put it to use in this game is immediately obvious: he flies down the court.  His footwork and speed in performing post moves also looks like it has improved: in many ways, he is looking more like Thomas Robinson down there than Aldridge.  This is good news.

McCollum started out well in the first half.  He led the team in scoring going into the half, and eventually ended up 19 points, along with 5 rebounds and 3 steals. Defense inside tightened up and kept him from getting to the hoop in the second half, however—which he continued to try and do, as he did in the previous game—and he ended up going six for 16, with an ugly one for seven from behind the three point line.  Nevertheless, the tough defense forced him to turn to a tool we haven’t seen him use so much: the floater.  It turns out he has a nice one.  It also made him more aggressive personally—something that he is clearly working on in general but which it was particularly good to see when some challenge was thrown his way: in the fourth he got a rebound, and just tore down the court himself to take a short jumper about seven feet from the basket on the other end, missed it, grabbed the rebound, and put it up and in for two.  It was arguably reckless, but satisfyingly vicious as well: in a player known so much for his control and poise last year, it is good to see something of the absolutely terrifying McCollum that we saw in his college years come out.  He is radiating a confidence that his formidable intelligence, far from restraining his game, will be translated more effectively into it if he unleashes his physical gifts.  In short, you can see him thinking with his body more than ever before, and this is something that should terrify opposing teams.

Allen Crabbe showed up to this game, make no mistake.  He didn’t show up much—in the scheme of things he didn’t make that big of an impact.  But he was aggressive and confident whenever the ball got in his hands, played serviceable defense, and moved off the ball with quickness and precision.  He got the ball near the block later in the game, made a great little run underneath the hoop with a crab dribble (no pun intended) and put it up on the other side.  It looked good.  It probably felt good, too.  All in all, he went two for five, had three rebounds, and came away with two steals, great defensive plays.  Sure, he airballed a shot, but it was because the screen for him wasn’t that great and his defender was in his grill suddenly when he went up.  Sure, he got trapped once in the left corner, picked up the ball, and, looking around in panic, threw it away, but hey, it happens.  These seem more like flukes than ever.  The positives outweigh the negatives for Crabbe this game, and if he can bring a similar effort into the next game, he may come away with a performance we might dwell more upon.

All in all, though, what was great about this game was that the Blazers looked really into it.  They had an intensity and a focus that was a product of their playing as a team, and which no doubt made them continue to play as a team all the more.  Each of them want the ball, they crave it, not as individuals, but for the sake of the team: they want it in their turn, and want to do well to make the team win.  They are showing hustle, and they get excited when a call goes their way.  On the inbounds alley-oop play that Barton jammed, Thomas  Robinson literally jumped up and down in place when he saw it go down.  He was just that into it, into his teammate excelling, and let it out in a burst of sheer enthusiasm.  These Blazers are playing as a team, and if they continue to work at this level, they could really make the leap that will make the bench an asset next season, rather than a liability.