New-Look Portland Trail Blazers Are Sloppy at First Sight

For as long as we can remember, the Portland Trail Blazers have been a conservative team, a slow-paced, half-court offense with a ferocious defense and a steady, strong-willed scoring pace. Ball security was key, controlling the tempo, even more. They've been in the top nine in assist-turnover ratio as a team every year since 2007, and top six in least turnovers for even longer.

But with these new additions of Raymond Felton, Gerald Wallace and Jamal Crawford, all high-scoring, up-tempo players, coupled with the amnestying of the oft-injured Brandon Roy, the new-look Blazers are exactly that—a new look.

"25 turnovers. You really don't win a lot of games with 25 turnovers in a ball game," Coach Nate McMillan said after a sloppy win over the Denver Nuggets last week.

But immediately after, the Blazers turned the ball over 21 times, 11 of which were balls that were stolen by the Los Angeles Clippers. The new-look, up-tempo Blazers only scored five points from fast breaks, while Felton and Crawford combined for 11 turnovers between themselves.

Wallace went scoreless for the first time since he started getting steady minutes in 2002, and Aldridge shot 9-of-21 from the field—an uncharacteristically horrible night for the team captain—for 19 points and nine boards in 42 minutes. 

Crawford scored 23 points, but shot 7-of-16 and took J.R. Smith-like shots when the Blazers badly needed buckets.

The poor shooting went down the column.

Portland shot a mere 42.3 percent as a team for the game, the Clippers 48, and they took their first loss of the season, 93-88, on the road to a newly gelled, three-man team of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. 

Even more disturbing, the Blazers had only two blocks as a team, one from each of their veteran big men, Kurt Thomas and Marcus Camby. Aldridge went block-less; Wallace and Nicolas Batum followed suit.

The NBA is coming off of a 149-day lockout, so a little bit of leeway is granted, but there is simply no excuse for such sloppy play from a heavy dark-horse contender in the Western Conference. Decision-making must be improved, tempo control even more.

Wallace had an off night, something we won't see often, but Wesley Matthews had his third bad game in four games, shooting 4-of-10 after two 4-of-14 nights. Felton too shot 4-of-10 for 12 points and put up a big doughnut in the three-point category, missing all four of his attempts.

The defense will pick itself up. The shooting will get better over time, and the turnovers will revert back to a minimum. Aldridge will get back to his highly efficient ways, and the Blazers will still make noise in the West.

But this slump of sloppy games must come to an end. With Northwest rival Oklahoma City and the Kobe Bryant-led Lakers waiting to play, Portland has to adjust, and quickly, before they end up 3-3 in this shortened 66-game season.

Portland fans expect more. 

I expect more.

Still, at 3-1, the Blazers are second in the Northwest behind the undefeated Thunder and tied with the San Antonio Spurs for second in the West. 

It's only the beginning, so there's time to improve. 

However, there's always a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

As sloppy as they've been in the last two games, they beat a very good Denver Nuggets team, 111-102, and only lost to the Clippers by five (four if you don't include the unnecessary desperation foul with two seconds left).

If they're firing on all cylinders and moving like the well-oiled machine that they are, the Blazers could truly be a top-four team in the West this season.