Blazers vs Warriors: still hot

Blazers 105 Warriors 95 (boxscore)

Another game against a favored opponent, another victory. Now is a good time to point out that Portland is the second hottest team in the league, only Boston has a longer streak going. DeceptivelyQuick was well in attendance for the latest improbable sans-LaMarcus victory. Because I'm lazy, I'll just throw my thoughts into bullets:

• No coincidence all this winning has coincided with James Jones finding his groove. He continues to shoot at a ridiculous clip, and that threat has allowed other guys (most notably Brandon Roy) to operate much more effectively. Veteran savvy, deep stroke, better than you think defense, James Jones is absolutely huge for this team. By the way, in an oddly recent pop-culture reference, the Rose Garden people play a sample from rapper Mike Jones "Mr. Jones" whenever James scores. I was pleased indeed.
• Outlaw continued his amazing play off the bench. I'm not sure I know a single basketball person that approves of all those awkward fadeaway jumpers he takes, but when they fall you just shut-up and cheer. Any team that has a guy scoring 19 a game off the bench (Outlaw has averaged about this over the winning streak) is trouble.
• I love when Pryzbilla gets his minutes, and he got 30 tonight. In a throw-back to the Damon Stoudamire days, the Blazers actually used him on offense. Joel's no Tim Duncan with the ball, but he has proven many times that he is a capable finisher around the hoop, especially coming off a pick n roll. I hope this will be a continued option, and not something happening only because LaMarcus is out. Love that they play Thriller whenever Joel scores, by the way.
• Roy. Roy. Roy.
• I've been as big a Jarrett Jack supporter as there is out there, so when his shortcomings became painfully obvious, well, that sucked for me. I was relieved to see him eventually find a role. That role is not pointguard. For stretches of this game, Jack ran the point. During these stretches, the arena would hold its collective breath and grit its teeth hoping for the best.
• I've noted the most important void left by Z-Bo's departure. In other chalupa-related news, when the team gets close to 100 the mascot is on the jumbotron starting a chalupa chant (seriously). I can't support this. Not only did it confuse the Japanese people sitting by me, its like talking about a no-hitter while its in progress. Yet another reason Blaze the Trailcat sucks, he/she/it is conducting himself/herself/itself in a manner that is conducive to chalupa-jinxing. We can't have that dammit. Stop this at once.

Deceptively Responsible:

Since the playoffs are in full swing, I figured now is a good time for a mostly unrelated post. While wasting away in a cubicle today, I thought up some summer goals for Deceptively Quick:

• Be the #1 Google search result for "Fred Hickman." As of this post, I'm #8, but I have yet to peak. Watch your back, Wikipedia. Past thoughts on Fred Hickman.

BREAKING NEWS! As of May 8th, (a day after this original post) Deceptively Quick has moved up to #6! They can't stop us now!

• Come up with some sort of banner/graphic/logo/thing to replace that horribly boring thing up there.


• Do an actual interview. Hopefully in the coming weeks this can happen, there's currently somebody playing for a small professional team in town who the world knows about, and who we all need to know more about.


• Increase my efforts on the Trade Zach Campaign.


• Finally promulgate the details of my anti-Blaze the Trailcat stance. Did you know it has an email address? Blaze@Blazers.com...Ugh.

I've Missed A LOT

Too much has happened since my last post. Some news would come out, I'd think about starting an entry and then some even bigger news would come out. I really wanted to finally outline my position on the Blazers mascot Blaze the Trail Cat (he sucks, but I want to go in depth about why, because that really needs to be said). Florida won. Paul Allen bought back the Rose Garden for real. The Blazers announced plans to retire Lionel Hollins Jersey , which is fine and dandy, but demands I remember how badly the Blazers have messed up on retired jerseys. Hollins was on the championship team in 1977, and they just announced plans to retire his number 30 years later. Hey Terry, hang in there. Ugh. Then I think about Terry Porter and it makes me want to get all nostalgic and talk about how he, in my opinion, is the most beloved Blazer figure to Rip City Fans. At least growing up in my house, Porter was god-like. Clyde's the most famous BLAZER, Walton's the most famous guy who was a Blazer. This could get messy, so I'll save it for another time.

Then, David Aldridge had a report about how the Blazers are ready and willing to use their lottery pick in this year's hyped up draft to bring in a good veteran. The link isn't on NBA.com anymore, but you'll have to believe me. Then I was cruising hoopshype and found a link to an SI article about Gasol still wanting out. Then my mind shoots off to entertain visions of Lamarcus Aldridge and Gasol running down the court together with pinwheels on. Not sure if Gasol would agree to it, but WOW.

And as always, I wanted to revisit the unresolved Fred Hickman issue (you'll have to dig in my old posts if you're curious). The playoffs are starting. Oh, and remember how Zach Randolph is sitting out the season to get back at me (he's on my fantasy team, and we're IN the playoffs)? Well I joked about having to replace him with Walter Herrmann. I did pick Walter up off of waivers, and he is NO JOKE! I still haven't seen him play, but the stats are keeping me competetive. Well ok, I've "seen" him play for the Argentina National Team, I think, I just don't remember. Why don't I remember? Well, he COMES OFF THE BENCH FOR THEM. Argentina's got some major talent, and here I always just watched because its my only time to enjoy Pepe Sanchez, who is one of my favorite players of all-time. I just checked out his site and saw that he's signed with And 1. Didn't know that, And 1 gets a couple cool points back.


Believe it or not, this was all just the beginning. The flood of topics, as well as recent life events that have drained my will/ability to be half-way funny, have created a log jam here at Deceptively Quick. I guess this means I just have to spend way more time blogging and watching basketball, life is hard.