I've been thinking a lot about the Andre Miller acquisition this past offseason.  Now he's being mentioned in trade rumors.  That's all fine and dandy, but my real concern about the whole Andre Miller free agency implications that it might have...

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There have been a lot of things about this season that haven't gone according to plan.  Brandon not being Brandon.  Aldridge getting off to a slow start again this year.  Inconsistent play on both ends of the floor.  Inconsistent effort from the players.  That's all been analyzed to death, and will continue to be; however, one thing has been more disappointing to me than all of that.  The Rose Garden isn't consistently loud this year, and that's on you Trail blazer fans.  I see a few explanations to the change:

1) The Blazers have played a fairly weak schedule thus far.  I know that it's tough to get up for a winless New Jersey team or for Minny when we've already crushed them twice.  Weak competition can be bland to watch, but I dunno bout you guys, but I have season tickets to watch OUR team play.  Sure seeing D-Wade is nice to see live, but watching Oden grab 20 boards was much better. Last night the crowd was TERRIBLE.  Perfect example of the weak crowd showing: Blazers were down 8 going into Miami's last offensive possession of the half.  We get a stop we can close to 6 or 5 the crowd was dead, no D-Fence chant, nothing.  So it's not just the bad teams.  Possible explanation, but a weak excuse IMO.

2) The Blazers have been extremely inconsistent, particularly on offense going through big droughts in most games.  It's easier to cheer when a team is getting big hoops, especially when coming back on D needing a big stop.  More often than not this year, the Blazers haven't come through in tight, winnable games in these respects.  In past years, last year in particular, the team responded to a very LOUD crowd when they were down 10, 15, etc.  They might not be responding well to the crowd now, but that's no reason to stop supporting them at home.  The RG was a special place last year.  7-4 is not special, but the crowd isn't making the building a difficult place for opponents to play either.

3) Maybe it's the lack of Chalupas for many of the games this season.  Are you fans disgruntled that you aren't getting your free, post-game calorie load? 'Nuf Said.

4) Is the crowd blandness explained by it being so early in the season still?  Perhaps.  However, we're all over the players when their effort isn't there.  That first Rocket's game last year when Roy hit the game winner was a raucous crowd.  That game was in November.  The player's performance has a lot to do with that, what an amazing game, but the crowd was a lot more into the game in the first three periods that I have

 seen at any point thus far this season.  

The RG was a tough place to play last year.  We need to make it that way.  Get loud.  Disrupt the opposing team.  Don't let them hear anything they say on the offensive end of the court.  

Portland.  Step your game up!

There has been a lot of discussion as to what needs to change following the tough loss to Denver last night.  A lot of fans have been pointing fingers as to what Nate has or hasn't done right in the first two games.  I think a lot of that criticism is justified, if not downright correct; however I think that a lot of fans are forgetting a very important point concerning this years version of the team.  

There are going to be growing pains with this team.  Period.

The Blazers have two new major rotation players and an emerging center.  That's 1/3 of your rotation players, not to mention the loss of Batum doesn't help this transition as I think it's obvious that Trout isn't the answer at the 3 and is better suited for the 4.  Regardless the playing rotation is still in a lot of flux.  Foul problems for our big men in the first two games combined with the plethora of injuries in the preseason have made it difficult for Nate.  Could he do better?  Probably.  Though he sees practice every day and has a much larger data set to make decisions from than ANY fan or media member does.  Thus, I think we, as fans, need to have a little faith for the first 1/4 to 1/2 of the season.  

People can point at the negatives of the Denver game: poor free-throw shooting in crunchtime, inability to defend Melo (though the dude couldn't miss down the stretch, jumpers no less), etc.  Being at the game last night I noticed some very encouraging things.  

1 - Improvement on turnovers from 26 against Houston to 7 against Denver.  That's a huge deal in a close game.  We didn't force many turnovers (8), but this indicates that this team is really going to improve throughout the season.

2 - This game featured a team that is basically the same team from last year.  A few changes in role players, but their starters are basically the same.  I expect Denver to get out of the gates quickly this year, whereas I expect the exact opposite from the Blasers.  Play this game in December or January and we blow out Denver at home.

3 - Rebound dominance.  I was watching the center matchup on the boards throughout the game.  Nene was held without a rebound, offensive or defensive, until the end of the second quarter.  This was after Greg picked up his 3rd foul.  Greg was up 7 - 0 on the boards and our centers had 12 boards to Denver's 15 or so rebounds as a team.  This kept us in the game despite shooting in the low 30% range for the half (and the game for that matter).  

4 - Improving defense. The second half defense was porous, but we help Denver to 40% from the field for the first half.  With the exception of Melo, who was playing and flopping like mad, we held their team in check.  The team just needs to play hard-nosed D for a full 48 min and we're going to win a lot of games, even if we have a shooting night like we did last night.  This coupled with our rebounding will make it exceedingly difficult to beat this team.  They aren't there yet, but the team is already better defensively than last year in my estimation.

5 - Brandon is the equalizer. He didn't get much help tonight offensively, and we still nearly won the game against a top 4 western conference team.  That isn't going to happen for most teams.

The growing pains that we are seeing will subside as this team feels each other out.  Cleveland is the perfect example of another team that is going through this too.  They made significant offseason moves and they are 0-2 to start.  San Antonio is 1-1.  Do you think those teams need wholesale changes? I don't.  Just because the Blasers are 1-1 now leaves me no reason to think that this team isn't going to play at an elite level, particularly after the all-star break.

Besides...don't we want our team peaking come playoff time?  I sure do.