Last night, the Moda Center crowd was in full effect. Down 0-2, the Portland Trail Blazers and their maniacal fans were reinvigorated, ready to show some of that verve that was painfully absent in Games 1 and 2 back in Memphis at the FedEx Forum.
The boos were deafening as the Grizzlies took the floor and during their player introductions. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, including more than one epic hype video borrowing heavily from the 300 movies. Then, injured shooting guard Wesley Matthews emerged from the tunnel wearing an Iron Man helmet, and the irony that he was limping along in a walking boot while doing so seemed completely lost on everybody.
It all ended up being for naught as the Blazers dropped their third straight playoff game to the Grizzlies (and seventh in a row including the regular season). It didn’t matter that Damian Lillard finally broke out of his slump to score 22 points on better than 50 percent shooting after horrendous outings in Games 1 and 2, during which he went 10-for-37 from the field, including 1-for-11 from downtown.
It also didn’t matter that Mike Conley – who’d been lighting up Lillard all series – left early in the third quarter after catching a blow to the face. It didn’t even matter that Beno Udrih, who’s also been destroying the Blazers, was unavailable to step in due to his own injury. It was third-string point guard Nick Calathes who came off the end of the bench without missing a beat to put up 13 points, three assists, and four rebounds, while shooting 50 percent from downtown in just 26 minutes of action.
A big part of the problem was LaMarcus Aldridge, who despite ending up with 21 points, was 1-for-10 from the field in the first half and just 6-for-18 overall. Sure, the Grizzlies’ defense was as stifling as usual, but many of those misses were shots Aldridge normally makes.
It didn’t help matters that on the morning before Game 3, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported that the Spurs plan to go after Aldridge in free agency this summer. San Antonio has said publicly that they won’t waste any time in offering Kawhi Leonard a max contract on July 1, and they’ll use Leonard and his growing stardom as a selling point to try and lure Aldridge away from Portland (Aldridge is originally from Texas).
ESPN’s Chris Broussard also reported during the live broadcast of Saturday’s game that when he asked Aldridge whether Portland will be his number one choice in free agency, his response was a rather cryptic “we’ll see.” Even more curious was Aldridge’s decision to fly back home to Portland alone – instead of on the team’s chartered flight – following the Game 2 loss, according to Jason Quick of The Oregonian.
Aldridge declined to sign a contract extension with the Blazers last summer, but he claimed at media day in October it was simply because he would be able to sign a longer, more lucrative contract with Portland when he becomes a free agent in the summer of 2015. Regardless of how attractive other offers will be – and they’ll be very attractive – the Blazers can still give Aldridge the most money.
Still, the Blazers would have liked to tie him down for the long-term going into this season, and it’s naïve not to think that Aldridge wanted to wait and see what happened in 2014-2015 before deciding on his future. It was a wise move from almost any angle. And now that the Blazers’ season, after such lofty expectations, is barreling toward an unceremonious end, Aldridge’s future with the franchise seems like a 50/50 toss up at this point. That’s a fact that not even the desperate, delusional chants of “MVP!” from the home crowd during one his trips to the line can change.
