The Official Site of Brandon Roy

Fri, May 1st 2009, 13:54

Blazers fall, Brandon looking forward to next season

Nate McMillan stood before a solemn and silent Trail Blazers locker room late Thursday night searching for the perfect words and suitable message to relay to his dejected team after Game 6 of their first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets.

But the sentences did not flow easily.

“I really wasn’t prepared for this,” McMillan later said, recalling the moment. “I thought that we had a chance (to win).”

And so it was for the Blazers. The most successful season in six years came to an agonizing conclusion at the Toyota Center, where the determined and physical Rockets trounced the Blazers’ playoffs aspirations during a 92-76 win before 18,376.

The Rockets advanced to the second round of the NBA playoffs for the first time since 1997 and will face the reigning Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Blazers are left contemplating what could have been and looking ahead to an offseason of reflection.

“This is a great experience for us,” All-Star Brandon Roy said. “All of our guys are happy we had a great season, but they have a bad taste in their mouth because we felt like we could have played better this series.”

The Blazers couldn’t have played much worse Thursday night. After going toe-to-toe with the Rockets in the first quarter, displaying the energy and fight that helped them force a Game 6, everything unraveled in a maddening and difference-making second quarter.

The Rockets entered the quarter with a 21-19 lead. They would enter the halftime locker room leading 52-37 after a start-to-finish, back-alley whipping. Led by an underrated bench, the Rockets outscored the Blazers 17-4 to start the second quarter, building a 15-point lead with just over five minutes left before halftime, as they seemingly could not miss and the Blazers could seemingly do nothing right.

Kyle Lowry and Von Wafer were hitting three-pointers, Carl Landry was knifing through the Blazers’ interior defense for layups and the Rockets were turning a close game into a rout. Houston shot 50 percent in the quarter, making 11 of 22 shots, including 4 of 6 three-pointers. Seven players scored.

Meanwhile, the Blazers panicked, scrapping the game plan and settling for outside shots that were often forced — and usually off the mark. They scored two points in the first 6:32 of the second and made 2 of 10 shots to start the quarter. Even the unflappable Roy committed turnovers and missed jumpers.

Adding insult to injury, LaMarcus Aldridge, who carried the Blazers in the first quarter with 12 points, collected his third foul with 6:30 left in the first half and watched from the bench until the third quarter.

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