Portland Game Last Night

I didn't catch any of last night's game, but I had a chance to look at the box score.

As I've always stated, I like to draw my opinions from actually watching the game, but last night a certain something stood out.

We lost to the Blazers by seven points, shot a higher percentage on more shot attempts than Portland, had the same amount of steals, more assists and had just three fewer rebounds than their team.

Now, we did have 5 more turnovers than Portland, which could certainly account for 7 points or so, but the big key is that we shot 17 less free throws—including 0 free throw attempts from both Foye and Jefferson.

Now, some have pointed out the great foul disparity between the Wolves and Trailblazers. Sure, our defense needs work, but I’m not really that upset about giving up around 20 free throw attempts to an NBA team.

What is annoying is that Foye and Jefferson never got to the line the entire game.
I’m not sure where the lapse is, but this tells me that the coaching staff just does not get it. Here we have a very good slasher and a premier post player and neither get to the line at all. That’s a very, very poor offense concept.

I’ll tell you one thing, I bet they never ran the pick-and-roll last night. If they did, it was only a few times. Unless Foye and Jefferson have the basketball IQ of 4th graders (they don’t), they know how to run the pick-and-roll.

Let’s see here, no one will be able to guard them, it’ll open up shots all around the court for everyone else, they’ll get free baskets at the line…no that’s not a plan I want to use.

Even if it was in the plan, Wittman then needs to call a timeout and say, “Get to the damn free throw line. You are not playing basketball at the YMCA.” Maybe he needs to slap a bitch.

Whatever the cause, this type of performance should be unacceptable. Wittman needs to establish punishments for not getting to the line. If Al and Foye do not attempt at least 6 free throw attempts a piece in a given game, Al has to share a bed with Mark Madsen for the next road game and Foye is banned from saying leadership clichés to the media for 2 weeks. If Rashad and Brewer do not attempt at least 4 free throw attempts a piece in a given game, Rashad has to give up Haiku for a week and Brewer has to eat a whole ham (win-win for Brewer).