I just saw video of the celtics and hawks incident on espn.  They reported that there will be no suspensions after the altercation.  Here is a link to the article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/news/story?id=3374218

and a quick summary of the incident:

"The confrontation started when Garnett cleared out Zaza Pachulia with an elbow, and the Hawks forward went forehead-to-forehead with the Celtics star. A referee grabbed Garnett, but he, too, got a push as Garnett struggled to break free."

What do you all think about this?  I saw the video and KG clearly shoves off a ref and Perkins and Marvin Williams clearly step onto the floor.  Shouldnt all 3 be suspended, since Stern always follows "the letter of the law"?  I am sure Pheonix thinks so, its not like they ammended the rule last offseason.  Besides, even if you let the guys stepping off the bench slide(which I think is very appropriate), KG still pushed a ref.  Isnt that worthy of a suspension in itself? 

I stumbled upon some surprising stats today on 82games.com.  I have openly questioned why Blake isnt seeing time in the fourth quarter, and I believe I found some stats that should only add fuel to this fire.  My point in all of this is that we are better when Blake plays over Jack, most specifically in the 4th quarter.  So I will just jump right into it.  

For those who arent familiar with 82games style, they use a lot of + - stats that are broken down by the possesion rather than by the minute.  They then magnify the stat over 100 possesions to get more useful numbers.  This helps even out different styles of play and gets to the nitty-gritty of what happens each possesion, or rather, every 100 possesions.  

First the on/off court stats of Jack and Blake.  Jacks are here , Blakes are here .

You can see that our team gets outscored by an average 4 points per 100 possesions when Jack is playing and our team outscores our opponents by 2.3 points per 100 when Jack is on the bench. Blakes are just the opposite, we out score our opponents by 1 with Blake on the floor and get outscored by 4.5 with Blake on the bench.  People often cite getting to the basket as a reason for JJ to play, but we only get 3 extra freethrows per 100 possesions with JJ over Blake. And when you consider we turn the ball over 1 extra time per 100 with Jack over Blake, it diminishes the value of those 3 freethrows.  As a team, we shoot a higher percentage with Blake and also outrebound our opponents with Blake on the floor.

NOW THE MIND BOGGLING STAT

I found what 82games refers to as the "crunch stat".  It basically takes a players + - during the overtime or the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter WHEN the game is within 5 points either way.  So lets see how our team does in crunch time with Blake at the helm as opposed to Jack. Jacks stats are here , Blakes are here .

Now, did everyone catch that?  When Jack plays in crunch time we give up 100.4 points per 100 possesions and only score 94.7 points per 100 possesions.  With Jack playing, our record is 12-15 in these close games.  Now onto Blake.   With him on the floor we hold our opponents to a rediculous 86.1 points per 100 possesions and score an even more rediculous 120.8 points per 100 possesions, and our record is 17-9 in those games!.  In all of Jack's crunch time minutes, we have been outscored by 15 points.  In all of Blakes crunch time minutes, we have outscored our opponents by an unheard of 54 points.  Blake's +54 is by far the best on the team, while Jack's -15 is convincingly the worst.  You also might notice that Jack's scoring and passing numbers are all better than Blakes, and this is the problem.  Too much JJ1 and not enough Roy.  When Blake plays late, Roy gets the ball, the defense spreads, and we win 2 games for every loss. When Jack plays late, he controls the ball too much, the D collapses around his drives, and we lose more than we win.  Can we please see Blake finishing some games? Please?

Rant over, and I promise to never say "per 100 possesions" again...

I dont know what to say, that 3rd quarter officiating really didnt give us a chance in my opinion.  There were so many bad calls, so, many.  Its no surprise that boston outscored us 32-17 in that quarter.  It carried into the fourth as well but only long enough to make sure boston had locked down a win.  How much did the refs influence this game?

Apparently there is another report out of Zach being Zach.  Here is the juice of it:

"According to the New York Post, Zach Randolph and Nate Robinson had to be separated during a timeout in overtime after Randolph threw a cup of water over Robinson, then Robinson responded by throwing a towel back at Randolph before the two were separated. "

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap/

I couldnt figure out how to link the actual New York Post article, so I just linked the realgm wiretap.  You have to scroll down a little way but its there with a link.  

Poor Zach just cant stay out of his own way, I kind of feel sorry for him.  

Chris Brousard just reported on nba coast to coast that portland is indeed involved in the jason kidd talk, but as a third party.  He said the talk was about Stackhouse going to NJ, Harris coming here, and Kidd going to dallas.  This is a trade that makes sense for portland, depending on who we give up...

Any thoughts???

Well, at least our road MVPNNR(most valuable player not named Roy).  Since the teams turnaround that started in december, outlaw has been killing people in their own arena.  His late game scoring has kept us in, and won the blazers several road games, two of which ought to be quite obvious.  Here are his road game stats from December and January:

17.4 ppg, 52%fg, 65%3pt, 5.8rpg, 1bpg

and his stats for our current road trip:

18.5 ppg, 54%fg, 71%3pt, 5.7rpg, 1bpg

Thats big time for a bench player, not to mention he has 2 game winners during this stretch.  His ceiling just keeps rising higher and higher.  How sweet it is to see the potential start to turn to consistency...

So, how good can Outlaw be???  How will he fit our team in 2 seasons??? 3rd option? 2nd option? 1st option? role player? All star? Nba finals MVP???  How much better will Outlaw get and how will he fit the team???

Freeman is reporting that Miles returned to 5 on 5 drills today for the first time.  It sounds like it was just light halfcourt workouts but it is still a nice sign.  Right now Miles is saying and doing the right things, I am interested to see how this plays out.  Here is the link:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2007/12/sunday_surprise.html

I was watching nba coast to coast and they were picking people for worst performance this season.  The first dude picked Mchale for shipping away kg for a bunch of nuthin. Guess what the second guy picked???  Zach Randolph's defense.  The clip they showed was even better. Zach was arguing with the baseline official while his man Murphy is setting up and draining a wide open three, there isnt a pacer within 8 feet of zach. Classic Zach. I mean, if you are averaging 18 points and 11 rebounds and STILL finding yourself at the top of the quarter season worst performance list, you are doing something very, very wrong.  

ps   there were multiple mentions of the blazers, all very positive.  Nate got some credit for his coaching job, the blazers got credit for having one of the best team performances, and roy got credit as a breakthrough player.  Jalen Rose said that "Roy is a quiet star about to become a superstar".  Nice.

Imagine the blazers go into Salt Lake city to take on the jazz and the following happens:

-The blazer commit 20 turnovers

-The blazers shoot 22 less fg's than the jazz

-The blazers grab 13 less rebounds than the jazz

-Roy scores 16 points on 5-12 shooting and only plays 30 minutes

-LaMarcus never logs a single minute of action

-Boozer drops 29 points and grabs 13 boards

-Oden still has a bum knee and doesnt play

Thats a blazer loss everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Right???  

What happened???  How did the blazers control the majority of this game??(The jazz never led after the 1st quarter was over!!!) How did we get the most unprobable victory of Nate's coaching tenure???

WHAT A GAME!!!!

Quick is reporting on the blazer beat that Taurean Green will be sent to the Idaho Stampede for an undetermined amount of time.  His first game will be a matchup against Aaron Brooks.  It should be interesting to see how he does down there, I would think he would get pretty significant minutes.  There is also some other good stuff posted yesterday about Jack being unhappy with how he is being used.