The Portland Trail Blazers lost their first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets in an embarrassing fashion, dealt  a crushing defeat at the Rose Garden because of an inability to contain their giant center Yao Ming. With an offseason to let the loss sink in, the team welcomed in some new faces, most notably point guard Andre Miller, and geared up for revenge in their season opener, this time against a Yao-less and undersized foe.

First Quarter

The Blazers started Steve Blake at point guard, Brandon Roy at shooting guard, Martell Webster at small forward, LaMarcus Aldridge at power forward, and Greg Oden at center, and went to work against the Rockets, a team with limited options offensively. Aldridge, $65 million richer, scored the team’s first seven points. Roy, $82 million richer, scored the next four on a pair of jumpers, then threw down a ferocious dunk off a pass from Travis Outlaw after finding the Starksville, Mississippi native and sixth man for a wide-open three-pointer on the previous possession.

Portland looked in sync over the first seven minutes, and stayed in rhythm once Miller made his first appearance at the five minute mark of the quarter. He looked for Oden on the first two possessions, and though the big center didn’t score either time, his attempt to factor him into their offensive scheme was a great sign. The big man rewarded Miller for his efforts, finding the stocky, physical guard for his first basket as a member of the Blazers, a twirling layup.

Outlaw hit a jumper with two and a half minutes left for his third basket in five attempts over seven minutes of action. He was very aggressive, looking to get into an offensive flow early in his attempt to become “Mr. Every Quarter.”

As the quarter wound down, acceptance and patience by Miller caught my eye. Miller, who orchestrated the offense a majority of the time with Philadelphia, played off the ball and let the offense come to him. This is Roy’s team, and he realized that after making his connection with Oden by giving Roy the ball and letting him initiate the offense. The Blazers only scored one point after Outlaw’s shot, but his willingness to be their second, third, or even fourth option was a testament to his knowledge of the team’s offensive mindset and his role.

The Rockets, though tied after one quarter, appeared to be in for a long night. Without Ming, they are considerably undersized, and because of this, head coach Rick Adelman, who ran a high-octane offense at the helm of the Sacramento Kings from 1998-2006, wanted his team to play more up-tempo. The problem is, they don’t have the talent to run such an offense consistently. Their lineup has some speed, but many of their players are defensive-oriented like forwards Carl Landry, Luis Scola, and Chuck Hayes, and guard Trevor Ariza. But their offensive production is in question, as illustrated by 6-19 shooting in the first quarter.

The Second Quarter

The Blazers knew they had the ability to turn on the jets against an out-of-sync Rockets team, and they did after a sluggish finish to the first quarter. Miller was left open on the right side of the court, Houston daring him to shoot, but being a pass-first point guard, he looked for the open guy. That guy was Outlaw, whose first quarter play transitioned beautifully into the second. Miller, who led the NBA in alley-oop passes last season with the 76ers, found the lanky forward and longest tenured Blazers for a thunderous slam.

After Portland’s next three possessions featured two turnovers and a missed layup, Miller found Outlaw again. Miller loves to post-up the opposing guard, and with his strength, has the ability to back him down, make a quick-release turnaround jumper, or let the defense converge and find an open teammate. He did the latter, as he brought three Rockets to him, fired cross-court to Webster, who screened off Outlaw’s defender and shoveled it to him. Outlaw, who wasn’t much of a three-point shooter earlier in his career, launched and drained the three-pointer for his tenth, eleventh, and twelfth points.

Following the fourth turnover by the Blazers in the quarter’s first two minutes, Outlaw forced Houston into coughing up the pill, stripping rookie Chase Budinger and then driving in for a dunk to stretch the lead to seven. Blazers announcer Mike Rice commented that the seven-year veteran was “everywhere”, and he sure was, continuing to improve every asset of his game.

Webster and Miller made two free-throws apiece after aggressive drives to the hoop, and then following the first four points of the period by the Rockets, Fernandez made a step-back three-pointer on a broken play. With that, Portland’s lead increased to ten. The margin would only get larger, as Webster scored five straight, Aldridge dunked off an assist from Miller, and Fernandez tallied Miller’s fifth assist with a basket of his own to grab a 16-point lead.

Portland finished the quarter with a odd lineup, playing both Miller and Blake, while moving Roy to small forward. This experiment worked wonders, as Blake nailed a three-pointer after an Oden block, then two more three-pointers off assists from Roy and Outlaw to cap off a turnover-prone (they had fourteen at the break), yet cumulatively successful first half of the first game of the new season.

Third Quarter

Oden had six rebounds and three blocks in the first half, and picked up where he left off in the third, grabbing his seventh rebound that led to a strong dunk by Webster over a defenseless Hayes. After Aldridge picked up his fourth foul, Oden committed just his second. His offensive foul was another wasted possession in a flurry of them midway through the third by the Blazers, but his defense and rebounding overshadowed this moving pick. He grabbed his tenth rebound with nine minutes to go, but Portland could do nothing on that possession, nor the next.

Webster ended the two-plus minute scoring drought with a left-handed hook, an unexpected move. The play re-energized the Blazers, as they went on a effective 9-4 run after that, restoring order to extend their lead to nineteen, their largest up to that point.

The Rockets offense continued to struggle, unable to muster much of a counter by shooting under 35 percent for the game and even worse for the quarter. Whenever they did score in the period, the Blazers had an answer. Outlaw hit a three-pointer after Landry made a jumper, and then Roy made a layup and a free-throw after Landry had done the same.

Portland maintained that 19-point lead heading into the final period, and it appeared safe.

Fourth Quarter

As it turned out, the lead was not remotely comfortable. Portland took the margin for granted and turned into the Rockets while the Rockets turned into the Blazers that had dominated over the first three quarters. Houston began the period on a 15-5 run, cutting the deficit to nine, while Portland racked up turnover after turnover.

Miller tried to wake his new team up. Przybilla fouled out with seven minutes left, sending a nervous shockwave throughout the Rose Garden, but Miller did his best to quell the anxiety by making a running jumper and then, to my surprise, a three-pointer in the form of a set shot (he barely jumped), the same three-pointer that he knocked down only 28 percent of the time last season.

The lead was back to fifteen, but his teammates didn’t get the message, as the Rockets found their offensive flow and whittled the deficit to just six with a minute and a half remaining.

The Blazers needed a spark to avoid embarrassment, and looked to none other than Roy. He was an abysmal 4-17 shooting when he dribbled upcourt, but it his fifth make and eighteenth attempt did in the Rockets. He pulled up for a mid-range jumper, lifting the sellout crowd out of their seats in celebration. The lead was back to ten.

Landry tried to answer at the other end, but Oden wouldn’t let him, blocking his sixth shot and the Blazers thirteenth, then forcing the forward into a travel once he recollected possession. The clock ticked under a minute when Roy took another jumper, but it missed. Aldridge’s tip went array, too. Oden swooped in uncovered from the right side and slammed home the punctuation mark for his first basket of the game. The game was now in hand, and the Rose Garden was rockin’.

It wasn’t the prettiest of games, what with the 26 turnovers and 42 percent shooting, but the Blazers, behind Outlaw’s game-high 23 points, Roy’s hard-earned 20 points, Webster’s quiet but aggressive 14 points, Miller’s 7 assists, and Oden’s 12 rebounds and 6 blocks, triumphed on opening night, disposing of a team they waited an offseason to once again face.

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