FanHouse JoelPrzybilla

Cherry Picking recaps yesterday's action.

The Blazers and the Rockets are both playoff teams that have their share of obvious flaws. In fact, neither one of them have any business getting out of the first round this season. But thanks to the way the seedings shook out, one of them will advance by default.

Unfortunately for Portland fans, that team is going to be the Rockets, and the reason is rather simple: This Blazers team is just not built for the playoffs.

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In front of a raucous crowd the Portland Trail Blazers took the court tonight for their first playoff game in six years, and the first of the modern incarnation. They were young, they were excited, and the entire city of Portland was behind them.

Then Yao Ming happened.

Ming scored 24 points, all in the first half, all in only 24 minutes, on 9-9 shooting to put the Blazers down for the count from the very beginning. After the rubble had cleared? Rockets 108, Blazers 81.

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At the beginning of a weekend column in The Oregonian, John Canzano tells the tale of Greg Oden occasionally isolating himself from teammates in the back of the plane, which is something he used to do to stretch out his injured leg on long flights. The problem? He's healthy now, so it appears to be more of a reclusive move by last year's top draft pick than it is anything else.

The point of the column is to point out that Joel Przybilla should be in the starting lineup and that Oden should be coming off the bench. But Oden's intitially gregarious personality has seemingly disappeared, and the fact that he's become more withdrawn seems to have the franchise afraid to pull the trigger on that decision. Canzano points out that at the moment, they're treating Oden with kid gloves, to the detriment of the franchise.

Cleveland and Portland boast the best offenses in the NBA as of today. Tell that to a doc two months ago and you'd get tested for diphtheria. The Cavaliers have seen a surge in execution around always wondrous LeBron James. But Portland has done it a bit different. Only 11th in the league in shooting, the Blazers have relied on second-chance opportunities to rack up points.

Portland leads the league in offensive rebounding percentage by a sizable margin. Joel Przybilla is a mammoth rebounder -- he sits 10th in the league on the offensive end and first on the defensive glass. LaMarcus Aldridge is at 19th in offensive rebounding despite his perimeter game. But the story is Greg Oden, who would be No. 2 in the NBA if he had enough minutes to qualify. (He'll get there soon enough.)

Portland's getting an offensive rebound on 33% of its missed shots. The league average is a shade under 27%. Between missed shots and missed second free throws, the Blazers have roughly 41 opportunities for an offensive rebound per game. The average NBA team would capture 11. Portland nabs about 14. Those three extra chances make a huge difference. (Likewise, as the No. 4 defensive rebounding team in the league -- thanks to Przybilla, Oden, Brandon Roy and Nicolas Batum -- the Blazers give up few second chances.)

A few weeks ago when the Suns hosted the Blazers, Shaquille O'Neal had some interesting post-game words for Portland's Joel Przybilla. I think Przybilla is (believe it or not) one of the few bigs in the league who isn't afraid to be physical against Shaq, so it's not surprising that O'Neal would fire back at him both on the court and off. But when the players matched up for the second time in this young season, it appeared that the two were ready to start the game on good terms.

Before the opening tip, Shaq and Przybilla shared a hug and a laugh or two at center court. Given their recent history of some minor altercations, I found this to be a bit odd, and got the chance to ask Shaq about it after the game.

His hilarious response comes at about the 4:07 mark, right after he's done admiring my iPhone, which I use to record the players' postgame comments.

After a day of rest between games, Shaquille O'Neal was very active in the Suns' win over the Blazers. Shaq played 30 minutes and finished with a nice line of 16 points and eight boards, while hitting six of his eight shot attempts and four out of five from the foul line. Besides the extra day of rest, Shaq seems to have a little extra motivation when he faces the Blazers' Joel Przybilla.

I don't know if Przybilla has talked trash to Shaq in the past, or if his attempt to be physical with Shaq is something the Diesel has taken personally over the years. The only incident I can remember between the two is this one from last season, but it happened only a minute into that game, so the animosity probably didn't start that night. (Oh, and they had to be separated in this one too.) In any case, Shaq gets up to play against the Blazers' big man, and after his performance tonight, he was feeling good enough to run a little smack.

"Przybilla can't guard me when I'm 27, 37 or 47," O'Neal said. When it was mentioned that Przybilla would probably be seen a lot in a Shaquille O'Neal highlight reel, Shaq smiled and said, "Thanks, Przybilla."

Again, I'm not sure exactly how many incidents there have been between these two over the years. But whatever has gone down seems to be enough to get Shaq going when the two face each other, even at this late stage of his career.

There's more than one way to play defense. Everyone celebrates the ones most commonly found on highlight reels -- the vicious block that sends the ball five rows into the stands, the sneaky steal at mid-court that results in an easy fast-break dunk -- but people tend to ignore another fundamental tactic: holding your ground and drawing a charge.

As Alex from BrewHoop pointed out this weekend, Andrew Bogut is one of only a handful of players who excel at both the highlight-reel block and drawing charges:

While the Bucks finished dead last in the NBA in defensive efficiency, Andrew Bogut completed the 2007-08 season with exactly 100 more blocks than he had the previous season, good enough for 1.7 per game. The third-year center also broke through with career highs in points (14.4), rebounds (9.8), and steals (0.8).

There's more: Bogut finished second in the NBA in offensive fouls drawn, with 53. He's placed in the top three overall each of his first three years in the NBA. Drawing charges is arguably more beneficial than blocking shots, which can result in the opposing team still holding possession.

Well, that was quick.

Less than 48 hours following the announcement that Greg Oden won't play during the '07-'08 season, the big networks (ESPN, TNT, et al.) that are slated to carry NBA games are already trying to kick the Portland Trailblazers off the National TV broadcast schedule. From The Oregonian:

"There are conversations taking place between ESPN and the league," said Nate Smeltz, senior publicist for ESPN. "We want to provide the best matchups for our viewers."

"If it makes sense for everyone to change a game, we would do that," said Tim Frank, the NBA's vice president, basketball communications. "However, the Blazers may still have a terrific season."

"Even if the Blazers have a terrific season, you won't see any of it on the major networks," Tim Frank did not add.

What, you mean to tell me that viewers aren't looking forward to the stylings of one Joel Przybilla? Shocking!

In all seriousness, though, this is just another example of how devastating the Oden knee injury is not just for the Blazers franchise but for the entire League. But like my colleague Tom Ziller said on Thursday, just wait until the 2009 season. The networks will be fighting each other to the death for the opportunity to carry Portland games.

Previously on FanHouse:
Who Wants to Watch the Oden-Less Blazers on National TV?