Larry Brown: 'I'd like to be the Blazers'

Bobcats coach admires Portland's Western Conference future, after Aldridge, Oden dominate middle against Charlotte

By Kerry Eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jan 28, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Portland's Rudy Fernandez completes a reverse dunk against Charlotte, via a feed from Sergio Rodriguez.

SAM FORENCICH / GETTY IMAGES

Charlotte Bobcats coach Larry Brown was generous with his comments after the Trail Blazers’ 88-74 victory Wednesday night at the Rose Garden.

But Brown, one of the most-storied coaches in NBA history, wasn’t just blowing smoke, as he paid homage to Portland General Manager Kevin Pritchard and coach Nate McMillan and endorsed LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden and Brandon Roy as league standards of the near future.

Asked to handicap the playoff contenders in the Western Conference, Brown thought for a moment and replied, “I’d like to be the Blazers.

“They’ve done a marvelous job,” Brown said. “They have a great coaching staff. Nate is really special, and they have quality (coaches) sitting there. You can see the young guys are improving. Any time soon, they’re going to have as good a power forward as we have in our league, as good a center as we have in our league, and as good a 2 guard as we have in our league – if not now. And they have a lot of pretty good pieces.

“Kevin has done a wonderful job. I love where they are. If you ask any GM in the league, that’s as good a young group as you can have.”

Portland broke the game open with a 17-0 run in the first and second quarters to seize a 36-18 lead. Charlotte (19-27) never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way as the Blazers (28-17) churned out their third straight win to move within 1 1/2 games of Denver (30-16) in the Northwest Division.

Charlotte was playing the second of back-to-back games, but the Bobcats’ disadvantage was much greater than that. They took a pair of overtimes to beat the Los Angeles Lakers 117-110 victory Tuesday night at Staples Center and didn’t arrive in Portland until the wee hours Wednesday.

And they went without their best player, Gerald Wallace, who had torched the Blazers for 31 points and 16 rebounds in a 102-97 overtime win at Charlotte on Jan. 17. Wallace suffered a partially collapsed lung and fractured rib in the fourth quarter against the Lakers and will be out for some time.

Those two factors left Charlotte with an empty tank against the Blazers, who took advantage with pressure defense and even some transition offense – at least in the first half, when they scored 10 fast-break points en route to a 56-40 lead at intermission.

The Bobcats “played last night and got in here late, so we wanted to keep the pressure on them both ways,” McMillan said. “We wanted to make them work to get back (on defense), and we we wanted to set the tone defensively – picking up, pressuring, making them work for everything.”

Charlotte shot only .414 from the field and equalled a season scoring low.

The Blazers “came out with a lot of energy, they executed – they had a great first quarter, and basically, that was it,” Brown said. “It was tough, but it was because they played so well. The second half, we battled like crazy, we defended well – we just had a hard time scoring. They just played better. They were really good.”

Portland, the No. 1 rebounding team in the league, outboarded Charlotte 45-26, including 17 off the offensive glass. The Blazers outscored the Bobcats 48-32 in points in the paint, with Aldridge (25 points, nine rebounds) and Oden (14 points, 14 boards) in domination mode.

“Our bigs established inside,” McMillan said. The Bobcats “were giving single coverage, and both Greg and LaMarcus were able to score.”

“They dominated us (on the boards) the last game and came out with the victory, so that was one of the things we wanted to make sure we did better,” said Oden, who earlier in the day was selected along with teammate Rudy Fernandez for the Rookie-Sophomore Game during All-Star weekend. “It turned out good for us.”

Aldridge and Oden were the biggest reasons why the Blazers were able to win comfortably despite making only 2 of 15 shots from 3-point range and committing 19 turnovers – with none of them coming in the final 9 1/2 minutes.

Oden battled Charlotte’s Emeka Okafor (18 points, five rebounds) in the trenches.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit