tlongII
03-15-2013, 03:24 PM
http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2013/03/raymond_felton_booed_outplayed_by_damian_lillard_a .html
After he arrived into Portland in the wee hours Thursday morning, Raymond Felton checked into a Portland hotel with his New York Knicks teammates and promptly exchanged text messages with Trail Blazers reserve Nolan Smith.
“I’m ready to go,” Felton texted Smith. “Enjoy the show.”
Actually, it was more like a circus.
With a chorus of boos echoing around the Rose Garden every time Felton touched the ball and the Blazers cruising to a convincing 105-90 victory over the Knicks' junior varsity team, basketball turned into a secondary form of entertainment Thursday night.
And one of the few to leave the fiasco disappointed was Felton, the critical component behind last season’s monumental Blazers collapse. He sauntered into the Rose Garden loading dock about 75 minutes before the scheduled tip wearing a determined scowl and headphones, breezing past a throng of reporters to the visitors locker room.
Less than 24 hours earlier, he told New York media there were “certain people there that I don’t want to see and better not come near me.” But Felton passed on the chance to elaborate before the game, refusing to speak to local reporters. And that was just the start of the spectacle.
An electric sellout crowd of 20,636 flashed gigantic posters with enlarged pictures of donuts and hamburgers and R-rated messages aimed at a player who last year challenged his detractors to visit his Pearl District apartment building if they had a problem with him. Felton was heavily booed during pregame introductions and every time he touched the ball, from the moment the Knicks won the opening tip to the final horn.
Over the summer, as he promoted his youth basketball camp in South Carolina, Felton pledged to score 50 points on the Blazers during his next visit to Portland. But his Rip City return didn’t exactly go as he planned.
Revealing many of the mind-numbing tendencies that torpedoed the Blazers’ promising 2011-12 season, Felton was more comical than clutch. He made just 4 of 12 shots and finished with 11 points, three assists, three rebounds and two turnovers — falling embarrassingly short of that 50-point pledge. All the while, he recorded a plus/minus of minus-20.
And every turnover and errant shot was celebrated by Blazermaniacs, who seemed to relish Felton’s miscues as much they did the Blazers’ successes. The never-had-a-chance air-ball three-point attempt in the first quarter. The pull-up jumper that missed everything but the backboard in the second quarter. The grotesque pass into the lane picked off by the Blazers that led to a Damian Lillard fast-break layup just before halftime. The driving layup that was emphatically blocked by LaMarcus Aldridge in the third quarter.
Even when Felton did something right, things went afoul. Early in the third quarter, he snatched a steal underneath the Knicks basket and had an easy layup in his cross hairs. Instead, Felton missed back-to-back contested attempts and the crowd soaked it in.
“It was what I expected,” Felton said. “Some boos — some boos the whole time, actually. It was what I expected. It was funny. It made me laugh. But basically we were trying to get a win tonight.”
As for the actual game, the Blazers (30-34) won convincingly following a sluggish start. After watching the Knicks (38-25) score at will after the opening tip and shred their interior defense with successful pick-and-rolls for most of the first half, they closed the second quarter with a 13-0 run and never looked back.
While Felton drew much of the pregame hype of headlines, Lillard upstaged his counterpart in every aspect but boos. In a performance that summed up his runaway NBA Rookie of the Year candidacy, Lillard was a blur of swished three-pointers, driving layups and pretty passes. He made 11 of 18 shots and finished with 26 points and 10 assists in yet another historic performance.
It was the eighth consecutive game Lillard has scored at least 20 points — the longest streak by a Blazers rookie since Calvin Natt in 1980. And in his 64th career game, Lillard became the fastest player to score 1,200 points and record 400 assists since Allen Iverson in 1996-97.
“He had a terrific game,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “As he usually does.”
So, too, did Nicolas Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge. After battling migraine headaches for the last 48 hours, Aldridge showed up at the Rose Garden about 90 minutes before tipoff unsure if he would play. By the end of the night, after finishing with 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in 44 minutes, coach Stotts confessed that he “couldn’t take him out of the second half” because “he was that good for us.”
All the while, Batum rediscovered his shooting stroke and confidence. On Wednesday morning, after a fitful night of little sleep, Batum showed up to the team’s practice facility at 9 and forced himself to make 350 shots before practice. He ditched the wrist brace he had worn the last few weeks and pledged to return against the Knicks a different player.
Unlike Felton, Batum delivered, shooting early, often and without hesitation, en route to 16 points, six assists and four rebounds. He made 6 of 10 shots, including 4 of 7 three-pointers, all without that brace.
“I think he had a talk with himself,” Stotts said of Batum. “He’s been struggling and I talked with him yesterday. It seemed like he was kind of determined to work his way through this.”
Of course, Felton’s return — and subsequent sideshow — overshadowed Batum's resurgent night and pretty much everything else.
“If you get booed, how else you supposed to respond to that?” Felton said, revealing why he laughed at the Rose Garden boos. “You can get angry, you can’t do anything. All you can do it stand there and laugh.”
And laugh Portland did.
Notes: The Knicks were without three key players as Carmelo Anthony (right knee), Tyson Chandler (left knee) and Amare Stoudemire (right knee) did not play. ... The Blazers swept the season series against the Knicks for the first time since 2008-09. ... In 11 games since the All-Star break, Lillard is averaging 23.3 points per game. ... JJ Hickson finished with 12 points and 16 rebounds, adding yet another double-double to his monster season. He now has 36, the 15th-most in franchise history
After he arrived into Portland in the wee hours Thursday morning, Raymond Felton checked into a Portland hotel with his New York Knicks teammates and promptly exchanged text messages with Trail Blazers reserve Nolan Smith.
“I’m ready to go,” Felton texted Smith. “Enjoy the show.”
Actually, it was more like a circus.
With a chorus of boos echoing around the Rose Garden every time Felton touched the ball and the Blazers cruising to a convincing 105-90 victory over the Knicks' junior varsity team, basketball turned into a secondary form of entertainment Thursday night.
And one of the few to leave the fiasco disappointed was Felton, the critical component behind last season’s monumental Blazers collapse. He sauntered into the Rose Garden loading dock about 75 minutes before the scheduled tip wearing a determined scowl and headphones, breezing past a throng of reporters to the visitors locker room.
Less than 24 hours earlier, he told New York media there were “certain people there that I don’t want to see and better not come near me.” But Felton passed on the chance to elaborate before the game, refusing to speak to local reporters. And that was just the start of the spectacle.
An electric sellout crowd of 20,636 flashed gigantic posters with enlarged pictures of donuts and hamburgers and R-rated messages aimed at a player who last year challenged his detractors to visit his Pearl District apartment building if they had a problem with him. Felton was heavily booed during pregame introductions and every time he touched the ball, from the moment the Knicks won the opening tip to the final horn.
Over the summer, as he promoted his youth basketball camp in South Carolina, Felton pledged to score 50 points on the Blazers during his next visit to Portland. But his Rip City return didn’t exactly go as he planned.
Revealing many of the mind-numbing tendencies that torpedoed the Blazers’ promising 2011-12 season, Felton was more comical than clutch. He made just 4 of 12 shots and finished with 11 points, three assists, three rebounds and two turnovers — falling embarrassingly short of that 50-point pledge. All the while, he recorded a plus/minus of minus-20.
And every turnover and errant shot was celebrated by Blazermaniacs, who seemed to relish Felton’s miscues as much they did the Blazers’ successes. The never-had-a-chance air-ball three-point attempt in the first quarter. The pull-up jumper that missed everything but the backboard in the second quarter. The grotesque pass into the lane picked off by the Blazers that led to a Damian Lillard fast-break layup just before halftime. The driving layup that was emphatically blocked by LaMarcus Aldridge in the third quarter.
Even when Felton did something right, things went afoul. Early in the third quarter, he snatched a steal underneath the Knicks basket and had an easy layup in his cross hairs. Instead, Felton missed back-to-back contested attempts and the crowd soaked it in.
“It was what I expected,” Felton said. “Some boos — some boos the whole time, actually. It was what I expected. It was funny. It made me laugh. But basically we were trying to get a win tonight.”
As for the actual game, the Blazers (30-34) won convincingly following a sluggish start. After watching the Knicks (38-25) score at will after the opening tip and shred their interior defense with successful pick-and-rolls for most of the first half, they closed the second quarter with a 13-0 run and never looked back.
While Felton drew much of the pregame hype of headlines, Lillard upstaged his counterpart in every aspect but boos. In a performance that summed up his runaway NBA Rookie of the Year candidacy, Lillard was a blur of swished three-pointers, driving layups and pretty passes. He made 11 of 18 shots and finished with 26 points and 10 assists in yet another historic performance.
It was the eighth consecutive game Lillard has scored at least 20 points — the longest streak by a Blazers rookie since Calvin Natt in 1980. And in his 64th career game, Lillard became the fastest player to score 1,200 points and record 400 assists since Allen Iverson in 1996-97.
“He had a terrific game,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “As he usually does.”
So, too, did Nicolas Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge. After battling migraine headaches for the last 48 hours, Aldridge showed up at the Rose Garden about 90 minutes before tipoff unsure if he would play. By the end of the night, after finishing with 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in 44 minutes, coach Stotts confessed that he “couldn’t take him out of the second half” because “he was that good for us.”
All the while, Batum rediscovered his shooting stroke and confidence. On Wednesday morning, after a fitful night of little sleep, Batum showed up to the team’s practice facility at 9 and forced himself to make 350 shots before practice. He ditched the wrist brace he had worn the last few weeks and pledged to return against the Knicks a different player.
Unlike Felton, Batum delivered, shooting early, often and without hesitation, en route to 16 points, six assists and four rebounds. He made 6 of 10 shots, including 4 of 7 three-pointers, all without that brace.
“I think he had a talk with himself,” Stotts said of Batum. “He’s been struggling and I talked with him yesterday. It seemed like he was kind of determined to work his way through this.”
Of course, Felton’s return — and subsequent sideshow — overshadowed Batum's resurgent night and pretty much everything else.
“If you get booed, how else you supposed to respond to that?” Felton said, revealing why he laughed at the Rose Garden boos. “You can get angry, you can’t do anything. All you can do it stand there and laugh.”
And laugh Portland did.
Notes: The Knicks were without three key players as Carmelo Anthony (right knee), Tyson Chandler (left knee) and Amare Stoudemire (right knee) did not play. ... The Blazers swept the season series against the Knicks for the first time since 2008-09. ... In 11 games since the All-Star break, Lillard is averaging 23.3 points per game. ... JJ Hickson finished with 12 points and 16 rebounds, adding yet another double-double to his monster season. He now has 36, the 15th-most in franchise history