Post-Game: Blazers at Suns, Game 2

The game of basketball consists of three main elements: offense, defense, and rebounding.

The Blazers did none of them last night.

Not all blowouts are created equal. Last year's Game 1 loss to the Rockets hurt especially badly because it seemed that it came from a parade of whistles going against us. Last night's atrocity was a total failure to play anything resembling winning basketball. Still, it's almost a relief. We're playing the Suns here, and we knew they were due to go off and not miss a single shot. We should count ourselves lucky that it was while they were playing at home in Phoenix instead of in Portland.

There's not too much to recap (and to be honest with you, I happily changed the channel in the fourth quarter to Lost with absolutely no regrets) as everything can be summed up in the sentence, the Suns did it, the Blazers didn't.

In the battle of the series' two x-factors, Nicolas Batum and Jason Richardson, Richardson came out well on top, and Batum looks to be injured yet again, a returning casualty of the cosmic joke which is this Blazer season.

The good news, if there's any, is that this game counts as much as the first one. Differential doesn't mean anything, only that you come out on top. Thursday, we'll have the home court and the score will be reset to 0-0. There's not much the Blazers or us fans can do but just put this game in a little black box, lock it up nice and tight, and throw it down a well, never acknowledging it again.