Image By The Talented Mr. @AnthonyBain

Lin has the ball near halfcourt. Nineteen seconds left, he looks back to the bench. You don’t believe it’s happening. Real life doesn’t play out like this. But what about Lin’s emergence hasn’t been storybook?

He looks back to the bench. The crowd starts to roar. It shouldn’t be able to get louder, but it does, moment by moment.

He waves off a Chandler screen. Everyone in this building is standing.

You think he’s letting the clock go too low. You wonder if he knows what he’s doing. You have goosebumps.

Two seconds, he shoots it. You hold two contradictory thoughts: no effing way and this is definitely going in.

Bam. Good. 0.5 seconds left. Part of you wants to scream, but your mouth isn’t moving. You look around. Lin and his teammates are embracing. People are burying their heads in their hands, laughing. Others are delirious. Yelling, jumping screaming. Apparently the Raptors have another possession but everyone knows it’s over. You realize you’ve witnessed something special.

“I feel good right now, but we’ll see tomorrow morning… My ankle feels great right now. Everything from an injury standpoint feels great.” – Jeremy Lin, postgame

You know he’s lying because you just saw him in the locker room. You saw the bumps he took, you understand why he’s moving so slowly. But you don’t expect a different answer.

“The amount of fun that we’ve had… you look around, everyone’s smiling, there’s a new energy, everyone’s just excited. That’s the thing, it’s not because of me, it’s because we’re coming together as a team. We started making these steps earlier, but we were still losing close games and so obviously it wasn’t fun but when you win that solves a lot of problems. And we’ve been winning and we’ve been playing together. Offensively, defensively, we’ve been following the gameplans. Coach D’Antoni and the staff, they come out with an awesome gameplan every single night with different adjustments. And that’s why it’s fun, from top to bottom, training staff, everybody, it’s a collective effort right now and that’s the beauty of a team sport.” – Jeremy Lin, postgame

You hear this and can’t help but smile. This guy, pardon the cliche, gets it. Even if he never hits another game-winner, even if his numbers dip, even if Anthony’s return messes up the team, Lin’s earned the joy he’s getting right now. You’ve seen his Knicks — they’re energized, they’re together. They’re a team. You’re just happy to have been a part of it.

Image by @AnthonyBain

• Pregame in the media room, the chatter was about how wild and crazy it was this morning. Those who weren’t here saw the tweets and the articles. And there were a lot of people who weren’t here: sure, it was packed this morning, but there are 75-100 more media people here than normal tonight.
• First person I see getting shots up? Jeremy Lin himself. The banality of the whole thing struck me the same way as it did when I saw Rubio in January. For the most-talked about basketball player (most-talked about athlete?) in the world, warmups are the same as they would be any other day. He went hard, even looking a little winded, and I was reminded of what James Johnson said about Lin after shootaround:

“I saw him before we played them up there and he was going hard. Probably one of the hardest shootarounds I’ve seen and it’s paying off for him. He stayed ready, went down to the D-League, and he’s being rewarded for his hard work.”

• One other thing I’ll say about watching Lin shoot pregame: the arc on his floater is freaking beautiful.
• After hearing D’Antoni’s Lin thoughts earlier in the day, I didn’t  hear a ton of his pre-game scrum. It might have been difficult for me to get in there, anyway:

•  I did, however, catch Dwane Casey pregame. Casey was an assistant in Seattle when Flip Murray exploded out of nowhere at the beginning of the 2003-04 season. Here are his thoughts on Lin’s journey and the Murray comparison:

“It’s different. Jeremy’s been up and down in the D-League. Flip had sort of the same ascension as far as getting to the top as a player, but this kid is doing it in a top market in the NBA, in the brightest lights. He did it against the Lakers the other night and was this close to being waived and now look where he is, so his story is a little bit more dramatic I think than Flip’s was. Flip’s is a great story, too. You can go back, there’s a lot of guys through the history of the NBA that you can look at that made it. Avery Johnson, he was cut in Seattle Christmas night and then he goes to Golden State, then he bounces back to San Antonio, wins a championship. There’s a lot of guys in the history of the league, probably not to the extent of you doing it in the biggest market, on the brightest stage, as Jeremy’s doing. What a beautiful young man. He wants to be a preacher, he’s smarter than all of us, being a Harvard grad. I couldn’t probably pass the first year of Havard. A great young man.

• It was wonderful to see Tyson Chandler award Dwane Casey with his championship ring at halfcourt pregame. The video of Mavs players congratulating him on the jumbotron was sweet, too. Nothing else to add here.
• Lin was introduced last for the Knicks and received huge cheers. There were also massive cheers when the Knicks won the tip and he first touched the ball. It got weirder from there, though: when he misses his first few shots, there’s a mix of cheers and boos. There is a battle between those who are here only for Lin and those who are pissed off that so many people are here only for Lin. Every time he gets an assist, there are cheers. When Jose Calderon rips the ball from his hands with 7:30 left in the first, the place is loud but it’s more of an “ooooh” than anything. Late in the first, he hits back-to-back layups and the place goes nuts.
• The arena is a different place in the second quarter. When he commits his fifth turnover on a fast break, trying to find Tyson Chandler, people cheer. With 2:13 left, he is booed when he has the ball on the perimeter, then he hits a three and is cheered louder than any cheer for Kobe on Sunday and any Raptor a lot of nights. When he has the ball on the final possession of the half, he’s FULL-ON BOOED. It has come full circle. I’m interested to see what happens in the second half.
• I realize there are very few basketball thoughts here. Here’s one: I didn’t think it would take a full quarter before we saw the first Lin/Stoudemire pick-and-roll. Chandler is still the main roll guy when he’s out there.
• Lin’s halftime stats: Nine points on 4-9 shooting, six assists (two to Chandler, two to Stoudemire, one to Landry Fields, one to Bill Walker), five turnovers, one steal.
• Raptors are up 47-36. Jose Calderon has 12 points and three assists, but did not score in the second quarter.

Image by Anthony Bain. You should follow him on Twitter: @AnthonyBain

Aside from Eric Koreen opening Dwane Casey’s scrum asking for a Jerryd Bayless update (“the reason everybody’s here”) and Casey later heaping praise on Tyson Chandler, every single question for the two coaches this morning was about Jeremy Lin. One of the more fascinating parts of this story is how Lin remains grounded amid all this hype, on and off the court.

It’s challenging enough for any backup  to step into the spotlight and know when to attack and when to defer. It’s doubly daunting to play within yourself in New York, while being treated like a superstar. It is remarkable how much confidence Mike D’Antoni has in Lin. ”This is a moment that he will cherish obviously but it’s also a great opportunity and I don’t think he’ll blow it,” he said. “He’s too smart. He’ll do what’s right to try to win, and that’s ultimately what’s going to judge him anyway. We’re dealing with a highly intelligent kid, so that’s no problem.”

Playing point guard in D’Antoni’s free-flowing system isn’t for everybody (see: everyone else who has played point guard for the Knicks this year), but Lin’s pick-and-roll instincts have him in his comfort zone. “He fits in perfectly,” Casey said. “Mike’s system is one that’s one of the most difficult to guard when you have a guy like that, a guy like Steve Nash in that situation that can run multiple pick-and-rolls, attack, read pick-and-rolls. He was at the right place at the right time. He got the opportunity, he took advantage of it, and now we have this.”

The question going forward is if it’s still a perfect fit when Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony return and it might not be in the team’s best interest for Lin to shoot 20 times per game. When a reporter told D’Antoni that a lot of people were thinking there would be problems, he corrected him.

“A lot of people hoping,” he said.  “There’s no reason why it doesn’t [work], only reason it wouldn’t is if they can’t get on the same page. But up to now I’ve not seen anything except cooperation from all of the players to try to do what’s right and try to get their games compatible. Maybe [problems pop up], but if we sit down and talk about it and work it out — what is best for the New York Knicks? — we keep that idea, then they should play better with each other.”

Casey, on the other hand, acknowledged the difference in the Knicks with Lin and without Anthony. “It’s a different look, but it’s similar to Mike’s teams,” he said. “It’s closer to what his teams have been about, more so than a great player like Carmelo ISO’ing and that type of thing. You’ve got a tale of two different teams — more of the way Mike has played in Phoenix now versus a different type team. They’re a little bit more of the same with Stoudemire coming back, but when Carmelo comes back… it’s a little bit of a different look.”

With how ISO-heavy the Knicks were before Lin and how pick-and-roll dependent they are now, it’ll be fascinating to see what happens when Anthony is back. While asserting that Lin is not a flash in the pan, Casey said that the Knicks were “close to becoming his team almost.” D’Antoni said something similar. “It is not his team right now, although it’s getting close,” he said. “He is a good leader just because he does everything right. He’s a great kid, he’s humble, he just goes out and plays hard. He’s not afraid of the moment, obviously. I don’t think he’s in the locker room cheering guys on — he doesn’t have to do that — but on the floor he’s what a coach needs. He leads by example.”

If you ask me, Anthony is more than capable of following Lin’s footsteps, even if he’ll never look at him as his leader. Anthony is a good passer when he wants to be and he’s seen how much fun his teammates are having during this winning streak. Maybe, as Matt Moore suggested, he can slip into a Shawn Marion role. Maybe, as Kobe Bryant suggested, there won’t be an issue because Anthony doesn’t need to facilitate and Lin can find him in the post. There will be problems, however, if he expects to hold the ball on the wing for 10 seconds every possession. As it as always been, it’s up to Anthony.

When not talking about the system and Lin’s impact on it, both coaches expressed genuine admiration for him and his story.  D’Antoni, with a laugh, said that the greatest part of the Jeremy Lin experience was “that we’ve won five in a row.” He continued, “Just everything, just what’s right with sports. He’s an underdog that came up, he does it the right way, and to be able to — probably the biggest point — to be able to step on national TV with all the scrutiny, Madison Square Garden, against the Lakers, against Kobe, and produce what he did — I mean, to me, that’s remarkable, that’s unbelievable that he can do that in that game. Again, we’ll have to see for the rest of the season. We’ve got a long ways to go yet. But up to this point, that’s off the charts. I don’t know if anybody could script that one.”

Casey said that movie directors would like to get their hands on this script. “In the biggest market in the world, in New York, he becomes an overnight sensation. You go from going to the D-League, on the waiver wire, getting picked up, and now he’s a starter on one of the prime teams, historical teams in the NBA. And you have Amar’e’s brother’s unfortunate situation, Carmelo gets hurt, and he steps in. You go from being on the waiver wire to “Linsanity” or whatever they call it.” [Note: I'm fairly sure Casey accidentally said "Vinsanity," but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he saw this dunk last night.]

D’Antoni acknowledged that not even those who saw him every day knew this was coming. “You have to have luck in life and you have to have an opportunity,” he said. “He had an opportunity, he took advantage of it. I would like to think that maybe we were smart enough to keep him around until that opportunity arose, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Following that, I’d like to let Casey’s thoughts on what we can learn from Lin speak for themselves.”Persistence. Don’t give up on your dream,” Casey said. “He had a dream back a few years ago, coming out of Harvard. Everybody probably thought he was crazy, he had a lot going against him at that time, but he kept working at it, didn’t give up. He could’ve given up and gone to law school, med school, whatever he wanted to do. But he stuck with his dream, stayed with it, took advantage of his opportunities, didn’t cry about not getting the opportunity… He’s a great kid, humble, but again like I said we want to kick his butt tonight when we play against him.”

The phrase I keep hearing is “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

It’s a Tuesday in February in Toronto and I just attended the most-attended recent basketball media event anyone in this city can seem to remember: Jeremy Lin’s press conference. It was held in a room last used for this purpose when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and the returning Chris Bosh were here last season. But that was postgame. This is unprecedented.

I arrived at about 10:15. All the cameras in the above picture were set up,  but there were only about 15 of us there. That number would multiply quickly.  As we waited, people talked about how nuts this is and shared pictures of Lin’s SI cover on their phones.

“It’s only been five games.” 

“Imagine if he’s out of the league in a couple of months.”

The first sentiment isn’t getting any less amazing. The second is something I find hard to fathom, but we’ll leave the speculation and talk of actual basketball for now.

Mike D’Antoni started his 10:45 AM press conference with the same joke Dwane Casey used at practice yesterday: “Are we into the playoffs now?” He talked for six minutes about Lin, emphasizing that it is not easy for anyone to deal with this hype but that he’s not worried about Lin because he’s such a good kid. He did not answer a reporter’s question about his favorite Lin pun.

The good kid was next, and he had to talk about himself more than he wanted to. He deflected a question about Floyd Mayweather’s tweet and how his race impacts how he’s viewed,  he gave credit to God and his teammates wherever possible. There was an odd moment where a reporter gave him a gift “from his Canadian fans” — he accepted it with a smile and a thank you. He also obliged when asked by that same reporter to give a message to his fans in Mandarin. The message? Simply “thank you to everyone for watching us play basketball.” His use of us is instructive — it’s never about me with Lin. Just over a week removed from his first breakout game, it’s awkward to steal the spotlight from proven stars. It’s uncomfortable to have all of these cameras on you. He didn’t ask to be the biggest story in the NBA, but he’s dealing with it as best he can.

Many reporters aren’t covering the game tonight so much as they’re covering the circus around the game, myself included. CBC interviewed four different New York beatwriters. The Asian reporters in attendance found themselves supplying quotes for others. There was an actual scrum around Frank Isola. Let’s just say none of this happened when I was here to cover the Timberwolves last month.

Photo by Brenderous on Flickr

 

On Monday afternoon following shootaround, I interviewed Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey at the Air Canada Centre. Most of it made it into the main story. I didn’t want to waste the others. I also jotted down a few thoughts/observations from the ACC, so here’s a notebook:

• Arrived at the ACC to see Ricky Rubio working with Bill Bayno two and a half hours before tip. Yes, he was practicing jump shots. Yes, he was hitting them with ease. Watching him, I thought about all the hours he must have put in over the summer/lockout, working on that shot in order to prove everybody wrong. It’s not a beautiful release, but he gets enough arc on it that it works for him. I don’t think his FG% is about to plummet.

• Next to Rubio, Derrick Williams and Anthony Randolph worked with Shawn Respert. It was cool to see them do a variety of different things. They worked on mid-range jumpers, then they posted up, then they went back out and shot threes. It was a 3-4 tweener warmup routine if I’ve ever seen one. I hope Michael Beasley joins them when he’s healthy.

• Anthony Randolph’s “I’m about to cry” face is not strictly an in-game phenomenon. That’s just Anthony Randolph. Also, Randolph is excellent at corner threes when he takes them pre-game with nobody guarding him.

• I like Darko Milicic more after seeing him warm-up and yell, “TWOOOO POIIIIINTS” as he releases shots. He did this at least once as Nikola Pekovic shot it, too.

• I like Pekovic a lot more after seeing him dunk, hang and swing on the rim, then dismount and say “technical, technical!” whilst laughing to Milicic.

• Wolves Assistant GM Rob Babcock was doing the rounds pre-game, mingling with the media and staff members who have been here since he was Toronto’s GM. Bryan Colangelo is so linked with the Raptors franchise that it’s easy to forget that Babcock is the guy who first signed Jose Calderon over six years ago.

• I find it very awesome and also amusing that there’s this enormous rock sitting there in the Raptors locker room. I love the message it sends, but after walking in and out a couple of times it felt like a really weird decoration. I hope players still think about hard work and perseverance when they look at it. I kind of wonder if they even notice it anymore.

• I’d read about Raptors Director Of Sports Science Alex McKechnie and his  Core X System before, but it’s another thing to see an NBA player on an NBA court doing exercises with elastics all over his body.

• About watching Rubio play in person: If you live in or near an NBA city, do it. There was not much of a crowd at the ACC but you could feel everyone paying a bit closer attention every time he had the ball. That goes for the defense, too — he completely changes the game when he’s in there because all the defenders are constantly worried about him seeing/creating a passing angle for an easy basket. If I was gameplanning against him, I’d do what Hollinger brought up on the NBA Today Podcast last week — like teams have tried with Steve Nash, I wouldn’t bring help at all when he has the ball and I’d try to turn him into a scorer. It should take you about a minute of watching Rubio to see how much joy he gets from passing. Even though he’s better than we thought as a shooter, forcing him to create for himself takes him out of his comfort zone a bit.

• Dwane Casey on DeMar DeRozan’s defensive improvement:

“I think DeMar is doing better in his one-on-one preparation and positioning and stance. I think that was his number one culprit. We’ve got him down into a stance, we’ve got to maintain that when frustration and fatigue set in. In his team concepts, he’s a smart player, he’s a smart guy, so he picked that up pretty quickly, but the number one thing for DeMar was his stance. Now he’s down in an athletic stance. He’s a great athlete, so there’s no reason he can’t be an above-average to good defender. And he has been that and we want him to grow and be one of our top stoppers defensively.”

• On Alex McKechnie, who was with the Lakers for the past eight seasons:

“Alex McKechnie is a godsend because he’s been around championships. He knows the culture we’re trying to build to win a championship, not only from a medical therapist standpoint but just from a culture standpoint. He knew the type of practices you had to have to be a champion, what needs to be done and said, and how you approach things. He’s got five rings. I’ve got two – I got one in college and one in the pros – but he’s got five NBA championships, so that’s huge. And just his presence has been great and I’m glad we have him in the organization.”

• On Ed Davis:

“There’s flashes of Eddy, the talent is there. For me it’s to push him, push him, push him where he’s giving us that consistent attacking the rim, attacking the basket each and every play he’s on the floor. It’s not about talent with Eddy – the talent is there. It’s just now him coming, taking another step of growth of doing it on a consistent basis. One possession, you can’t jog down the floor because now your guy gets a layup. Next possession, you can’t jog to the offensive end, now you’re losing an opportunity to get early post-up position or get deep post position. [It’s] about bringing the energy and the concentration and focus on a consistent basis and, again, that’s the mark of a young player, but for him he missed training camp last year – I’m giving him that benefit of the doubt. But I really like Eddy’s talent, now it’s just taking the next step and doing it on a consistent basis.”

• On the relative importance of bigs and smalls defensively:

“I think being able to contain the ball is one of the most important assets defensively, especially for a perimeter player because now that you can’t touch anybody moving your feet, being down in stance is ultra-important. The luxury is having a big back there to protect the rim, block shots, but it all starts with a stance and containing the basketball because if a ball’s driving down your paint, that’s a 90 percent shot, a layup, versus maybe a 35 or 36 percent three-point shot out there, so containing the ball with a hand up on the shot is huge and I think protecting the paint… the luxury is having a big guy back there protecting the rim, but for us, hopefully, they’re not getting to the rim. That’s why I say perimeter defense is probably, in my mindset, more important than having a big shot-blocker in the back.”

Paroxysm at Gametime merges HP’s usual theoretical and philosophical meanderings with actual game coverage. In our second installment, James Herbert sat down with Raptors coach Dwane Casey before taking in Ricky Rubio’s first appearance at the Air Canada Centre.

“I don’t know if players are ever going to love defense.”

In a single sentence with a simple premise, Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey captured the most basic problem facing every basketball coach. There’s no glamor to be found in a defensive stance, after all, and defense comes with none of the satisfaction of putting a ball through a hoop. But Casey’s job is to teach the Raptors to appreciate defense, even if they’ll never grow to love it.

“I think you have to take pride in it, you have to understand it,” Casey said. “I think you have to love to compete and part of competing is giving yourself to the defensive end as well as the offensive end… It’s more of a competitive culture, a competitive approach.”

Last year’s Raptors did not have a competitive defensive culture or a competitive defensive approach. They finished last in the league in defensive efficiency, and surrendered 112.7 points per 100 possessions. That mark was actually a slight improvement from the year before.

“Last year, their whole approach was an offensive approach and they were scoring big points, exciting, but at the end of the night it was an L,” Casey said, just hours before his team would face off against the Minnesota Timberwolves and force forward Kevin Love into his worst offensive performance since last March.

Coming into its match-up with Minnesota, Toronto was giving up an average of 104.9 per 100 – not elite numbers, but an enormous step forward. There’s more talking, there’s more of a plan, and even though there are still breakdowns and the Raptors still give up penetration too easily, they look better defensively than they have in years. While most of the criticisms levied in prior years were about passivity, this team’s biggest issue is its league-leading foul rate. For Casey, this is a better problem to have.

“I think there are some aggressive mistakes that we’re making,” he said. “Not adjusting to officiating, that’s the thing I see more than anything. I like the aggression; we just have to be smarter with it and not just blatantly put teams in the penalty and let them double us on the free throw line, so that’s where we are right now. For me it’s a lot easier to pull back the reins – I want us to be aggressive, but smart, legally aggressive, moving our feet, bodying cutters, tagging cutters, but without fouling.”

It’s hard to believe this is mostly the same group that missed rotation after rotation last year on its way to 60 losses, but Casey has orchestrated a turnaround without adding a major piece like the one he received at the beginning of the 2010-2011 season as an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks.

“In Dallas, we could say, ‘Hey Tyson [Chandler], deliver this message,’ and he’s a great communicator defensively. He’s talking, he’s telling guys where to go. He helped us as coaches hold guys accountable, where to go, what to do defensively. He was the shining star, the anchor,” Casey said. “With us, we don’t have Tyson Chandler, we’ve got our guys… Andrea [Bargnani] is beginning to be that anchor for us, talking, communicating. We want more of that from him but we don’t have that guy right now, so we’ve got to do it more in a team conceptual way more so than relying on an individual to deliver that message.”

You might be shocked that Bargnani, renowned in years past as much for his aversion to help defense as for his sweet shooting, is being discussed as a potential defensive anchor. If so, you’re not alone.

“I found out defensively we have better talent than I thought,” Casey said. “Andrea’s done an excellent job defensively, impacting pick-and-rolls, playing the post, doing the things we need him to do defensively to make an impact on the game, so that’s been a huge surprise – how talented he is, not only on the offensive end, but on the defensive end.”

Against the Timberwolves, Bargnani displayed his two-way talent most effectively midway through the fourth quarter. With the Raptors down by two, Bargnani received an inbounds pass in the right corner. A series of pumpfakes and jab steps later, his defender, Anthony Tolliver, was on his heels. A hard dribble left led him to the rim, where the seven-footer made a twisting reverse layup of which Manu Ginobili would be proud. On the ensuing defensive possession, rookie phenom Ricky Rubio scooted into the middle of the lane for a floater and Bargnani rotated from the left block to send the shot back. Minnesota never regained the lead.

Bargnani had the tools to make these sorts of plays well before Casey’s arrival in Toronto. They just didn’t happen often. “For me as for everybody, the biggest difference is we’re trying to make an extra effort and trying to be more focused about the defense,” he said. “It’s just a mindset that every defensive play, I say, ‘I’m going to do what coach tells me to do’ and everybody knows his role, so we try to do it.”

Post-game, Casey gave him credit for that mindset.

“He did a good job defensively on Love, a good job defensively of chasing around Williams who’s an excellent three-point shooter, and then in the post he did a good job on Milicic,” Casey said. “He was doing a little bit of everything for us.” Casey added that Bargnani has matured, and is playing like an All-Star — on both ends.

Bargnani’s 31 points led an attack that managed 109 points per 100 possessions against a Wolves defense that came in allowing an average of 98.8. It followed a stagnant showing in Philadelphia where Toronto managed a pitiful 62 points in four quarters of basketball, rendering per-possession statistics unnecessary with their futility. For Casey, nights like that remind him that he has to look at the big picture.

“Are there going to be stumbling blocks and ugly nights like the other night? Unfortunately, yes, because that’s part of growing,” he said. “We’re taking two steps forward and one step back – now we’re going to take three steps forward and one step back, maybe four steps forward and one step back.”

The challenge for Casey is the same as for Bargnani: finding a balance between offense and defense. He was brought in to establish a defensive identity and, for players exerting so much more on one end, it’s hard not to lose anything on the other. “It’s not the offense, per se,” Casey said. “It’s guys working harder on the defensive end and having the energy, having the legs to now come and produce on the offensive end.

“Our mission and our goal here is to not be 29th and 30th defensively as we were last year and I promise you we’re going to work every day not to do that,” Casey added. “At the same time, we don’t want to set basketball back 30 years by being a bad offensive team, either.”

Instead of setting basketball back, Casey has brought his team a couple of steps forward more quickly than expected. When Toronto takes a misstep due to inexperience, fatigue, or simply a lack of talent, it shouldn’t surprise. Even if it’s a fairly sizable misstep. Unlike his ex-colleague Rick Carlisle, Casey won’t directly talk about fighting for a playoff spot this season, referring instead to creating a playoff atmosphere and playing a playoff style. Toronto’s early play should be a cause for optimism not because of what it means for the short term, but because it allows us to imagine what it will look like when Casey’s had a couple of seasons to make his mark on the franchise. Casey’s comments ring through when you take a step back: the Raptors have a long way to go, but he knows exactly where he’s taking them.

Photo by istargazer on Flickr

Paroxysm Gametime merges HP’s usual theoretical and philosophical meanderings with actual game coverage. In our first installment, Scott Leedy was on the scene at Nuggets-Blazers at the Rose Garden to find out why all of a sudden, the Blazers actually are faster for once. 

Raymond Felton has seen a lot change in the past year. Last summer Felton signed as a free agent with with New York only to be traded to Denver as a part of the Carmelo Anthony deal.  Then on draft night he was sent to Portland as part of a package for Andre Miller. The chaos of moving from city to city stands in stark contrast to stability of his early career. Felton played high school ball in South Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina where he won a national championship. He was then drafted by the Charlotte Bobcats and spent the first 5 years of his career there.   While the transitions haven’t been easy Felton is taking it all in stride.

“It’s not been hard,” Felton said Thursday prior to the Blazers’ win over Denver Thursday night. “It’s a part of the league, anybody can get traded. This is a business and I learned that. It really doesn’t bother me at all.”

But Portland’s new point guard does concede it was always good being closer to home. “Home is home. You see family all the time. You’re just in your comfort zone. So being all the way out west, is different”.

Still, Felton feels as though he’s found a new home in Portland. “Other than the fact that it rains a lot,” Felton says with a laugh..

On the court Felton has allowed the Blazers to play a much more aggressive and fast paced game, predicated on pushing the tempo. Nate McMillan’s teams have always had a reputation of being incredibly slow paced and deliberate; always ranking near the bottom of the league in pace. While it’s only been three games, according to John Hollinger of ESPN the Blazers rank second in the league in pace. Much of this has to do with Felton’s speed and skill set, but also what Felton believes to be a shift in philosophy.

“[We're] trying to change the team. Instead of being a half court team and one of the lowest scoring teams in the NBA, we want to push the tempo. If we get a turnover, or a rebound, all the [other] guys gotta do is spot up and be ready. I’ll get it to them… I’m [going to] make the right play”.

Certainly Felton has no shortage of offensive weapons, the most important being LaMarcus Aldridge. Felton raved about Aldridge Thursday, saying, “He does everything. He’s a big man that [has] great hands, he can play with his back to the basket, and put it on the floor to get his own shot”.

Aldridge in turn spoke on the benefits of playing with his new disher. ”He makes it easy,” Aldridge said. “I just pick and he gets me the shot. I have to read it but when you have a good guard who knows how to run the pick it roll, they make it easy”.

With Felton and Aldridge the pick and roll is bound to be an extremely effective play for the Blazers. As Felton describes it, “The big man can’t try and stay with me and get back to Lamarcus on the pop out… So I really only have to worry about one guy; the guy in front of me. If he keeps coming I’m going to throw it to LaMarcus. If not, I can take him one-on-one and attack, not necessarily to get my own shot but to get someone else a shot.”

Despite missing all of training camp and playing only a few games together, Felton had Aldridge have already developed a good rapport. Felton noted, “For it only being game three, we’ve got a great continuity with each other and it’s going to get better.” That’s a scary thought for opposing defenses.

For both Felton and the Blazers the transition from a slow-paced offense to a more up tempo style doesn’t come without headaches. On Thursday night the Blazers turned the ball over 25 times. Higher turnover totals are certainly part of the territory of a more aggressive offensive style but coach Nate McMillan thought it got “too fast” at times and Felton said” we gotta work on [taking care of the ball], I gotta work on [taking care of the ball]“. But this is a very talented Blazers team that has somehow garnered little attention or praise.

For Raymond Felton that’s just the way he likes it.

“That’s cool,” Felton said of there being little hype around the team. “Don’t even talk about us. Keep it just the way it’s going I wanna stay right under the radar”.

Sorry Raymond but this team is too fun, too exciting, too completely and totally awesome; the talking starts now.

Author’s Note: Special thanks to Ben Golliver of Blazersedge for showing me the ropes. You can read his repot from the game here.