On the bus from the plane to the hotel in New Orleans, Mike Rice leaned over to me and said “It sounds like a loss”, despite the fact Portland had beaten Miami earlier that night for their second straight road win. Last season, the silence he was describing came after a tough loss, when no one is in the mood to talk, especially as the clock slowly moves somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m. and the team is still traveling to the next city for the next game. Tonight, as the deep backcourt combined for 60 points, the silence is more like mission accomplished. The Blazers arrived in Miami, played hard, won the game and left, exactly as planned.
The good news is that team’s attitude is not cocky, but confident. Summing up the night, Brandon Roy said, “It feels good to get a road win, we’re playing some good teams, but we expect to win.” The great news is that the Blazers confidence is steadily growing and it’s apparent on this first long road trip of the season. Some of their confidence stems from racking up W’s on the road, but it’s also a growing sense of trust and expectations developing on the team.
After Travis Outlaw’s performance in Orlando two nights earlier, which sealed the first road win of the season for the second year in a row, Roy said, “I tell Travis everyday that ‘you having a good game is not good game, that’s standard for us now. We need you to be good off the bench every night.’ He understands that and he’s shooting the ball lights out right now.”
Outlaw defers and gives credit for his success to his teammates for getting him “open looks”. He went on, “Everybody stepped up, it wasn’t just me… LA did a nice job down low, Channing came in and hit some shots, Rudy did really well, it wasn’t just me.”
Combine a deep lineup with the team’s trust and unselfish respect for each other’s skills, and you have a Blazers squad that knows they will win games collectively. According to Channing Frye, “Everybody steps up, man to get these wins. With this team, you never know what’s going to happen with the minutes, but everybody has to be ready….my first three shots didn’t go in (in Orlando), and last year I would have been trippin, but now it’s like my number is called and I can go out there and do what Joel does and if its not my night (offensively) Brandon and Lamarcus and Steve will step up, so it’s like ‘what can I do to get this team going and create space and do something other than score.’”
At the root of their confidence is trust. Frye remarked, “I trust them a lot and they trust me that I’m going to make and unselfish decisions.” LaMarcus Aldridge agrees, “If we stick together, anything can happen…I think everybody can make big shots and it shows we have a total team.”
Sometimes, silence is golden.
