There are times that is a much-needed commodity. Outlaw's jab-step fall-away is all but impossible to block and not much easier to even contest. As of this moment, Portland has two guys who can create their own shot-Brandon Roy and Trout. He provides the team with so many valuable assets. Take him off this year's team and they are six to eight games worse at least. Take Outlaw off last year's squad and the Blazers are maybe a 30-win team. Many Blazer fans are howling for Travis "Trout" Outlaw to be traded. After the game, I noticed another trend which somewhat stems from the unexpected success of Batum. Ultimately, I figured Portland would come up short and they did. At home against a team that needs to click on all cylinders to beat them, the Suns are simply too good to let this game get away. I suspect the calls were not as egregious as Wheels and Rice made them out to be, but when things start going south against a team that is in your head-as the Suns are after their recent dominance of the Blazers-you start looking for reasons to fail. The only question remaining is by how much. When a young team gets distracted by the officiating-and it was clear from Wheel's call of the game they were-they are eventually going to lose.
Rudy gay choke ad free#
Yet in this game, both guys were livid about the officiating, going on about horrific calls-an Aldridge block called a goaltend, a few hack jobs by the Suns not called while touch fouls were being called on the Blazers, free throws awarded when the Suns were kicking the ball outside-for minutes at a time. He leans slightly towards homer-ism, without being as over the top as Rice. Brian "Wheels" Wheeler, on the other hand, is much more even-handed.
![rudy gay choke ad rudy gay choke ad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZE5Q4czApsk/maxresdefault.jpg)
Conversely, if there was no opponent over the mid-court line when a Blazer missed a dunk, he would be screaming for the (non-existent) foul to be called. Any given Blazer could put a choke-hold on an opponent, drop a couple elbows, kick the guy in the groin, and Rice would think it was clean. "The Wild One" Mike Rice is a complete and unapologetic homer. It had to do with the Blazers' radio announcers.
![rudy gay choke ad rudy gay choke ad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xksNXi3HfIs/hqdefault.jpg)
On the downside, it was obvious to me even when Portland had a third-quarter lead that they would eventually lose. And Nicolas "Boom Boom" Batum is looking more and more like a guy who can be used at crunch time to play defense on scoring point guards, talented wing defenders, and so forth. LaMarcus Aldridge had a better offensive game against Stoudemire than he typically does, and is showing improved aggressiveness in looking for his shot. For one, after getting kicked in the teeth early and getting down by double digits, the Blazers' second unit came back to get them a lead which they then carried into the third quarter. There were some good signs from the game. Letting Barnes hit for 21 is not going to get the job done.
![rudy gay choke ad rudy gay choke ad](https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sltrib/2ESNQD6DGVCFLMHH6XIURBOJ7U.jpg)
If you are going to beat the Suns and let Stoudemire, Nash, and the Big Cactus score big numbers, you certainly better shut everyone else down completely if you want to win. As expected, Steve Nash ran wild, Amare Stoudemire scored seemingly at will, and Matt Barnes and Raja Bell scored a great deal. Making a mockery of my assertion that Joel "the Vanilla Gorilla" Przybilla plays him better than most, Shaquille O'Neal had a dominating game, missing something like two shots all night. Before and after those periods, they flat-out got toasted. Unfortunately, that half extended from late in the first quarter until early in the third quarter. Portland played pretty well for half a game in Phoenix.