Portland 103, Utah 89 (boxscore)
This was going to be the night I stopped with the game recaps for a while. But again, this team has a habit of making special things happen, so here we are: A Monument to Martell Webster's third quarter. Let me set the scene a little.
Throughout the first half, Portland was playing horrible for the most part. It was painful to watch an already beat-up Roybot having to contend with the defensive wrath of Jerry Sloan. The crowd kept trying to get into it, but Portland and Utah were keeping things quiet. The score at the half of this ugfest: Utah 42, Portland 39.
Coming out for the third quarter, we learn Roy is going to sit out the rest of the game. Not encouraging. Then Martell started hitting. And hitting. And hitting.
If you didn't see the game, I know what your thinking. A bunch of catch and shoots, Martell got his spot up stroke going and hit from gaps in the Utah zone. Wrong. Wrong! Nailing a few consecutive jumpers gave Martell the confidence to transform into something we've only seen flashes of before. When I described it to a friend via text message, I said he looked like a slightly bigger Kobe. He was absolutely killing the Jazz.
He started moving without the ball, pure fluid off screens to get open. Then he started posting up his smaller defender. He pulled up off the dribble. He took it hard to the rack. And yes, the catch and shoot was sprinkled through all of this. When the horn finally ended the quarter, Portland was up 75 to 64, the Rose Garden was on fire, and Jerry Sloan was nearing spontaneous combustion. Needless to say, the game was all but over. Martell's damage in his 12 minutes of fury? 7-9 from the field (including 3-4 from 3), 7-7 from the line: 24 points. Fitting that this was against Utah and Deron Williams, whom the Blazers infamously passed over to draft Martell. For the first time in Webster's career, people forgot about that, even if it was for just one quarter. Here's to many more. (Watch the video)
A wonderful time to be a Blazer fan.
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4 comments:
In the post-game interviews LaMarcus was talking about Martell and called his performacne "Baby Kobe."
Isn't Kobe also Martell's favorite player? Baby Kobe is kind of funny, too bad there's too much disdain for the Lakers in Portland (present company included) for that to stick. I always liked Harold Miner's "Baby Jordan" tag, but things didn't really work out for Harold, maybe we should stay away from this one.
Martell has always reminded me of a Baby Glen Rice or a Baby Michael Finley. I think he's more Glen Rice than Finley though. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens at our SF position this year and next. I bet James Jones and Martell have some pretty good practice battles. I think Jones has a player option at the end of this season. I hope we can keep him and Martell both. We're gonna be even nastier from the perimeter next year when Rudy comes over. But something has to give. We don't have enough playing time to develop all these young guards. It's gonna be really interesting to see what KP and Penn are able to do with all our pieces over the next few seasons, especially this year's draft pick and our upcoming cap space in two (?) seasons.
No doubt, tough decisions ahead. Especially hard when you like EVERYBODY on the roster. Should be an interesting off-season.
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