Bullets Lose Game, EJ Loses Cool

The Bullets lost another winnable game last night, falling in Portland 100-98 to the Trail Blazers after leading for almost the entire game. The team wasted another fine performance from Antawn Jamison, who finished with 27 points and 12 rebounds. DeShawn Stevenson [17 points] had a nice first half, but did almost nothing in the second half besides get embarrassed by future rookie-of-the-year Brandon Roy. None of the Bullets' big men could handle Lemarcus Aldridge [photo], who finished with a very efficient 25 points. Andray Blatche finished with more fouls [4] than points [0] and spent most of his time on the bench after getting the start. Gilbert Arenas had 19 points and 10 assists, but shot a miserable 4-16 from the field, including 0-8 on 3-pointers. [That makes Gil 0-15 on 3-pointers against Portland this season.] Gil's final shot, an open floater in the lane as time expired, fell several feet short of iron. It was, for Gil, another embarrassing performance against a bad Portland team.

And it left Coach Eddie Jordan in a distinctly bad mood:

"There were 24 minutes when we played hard and played together and then there were 24 minutes when we didn't play the right way, didn't protect the rim and didn't play good defense," Jordan said. "I'm going to find the guys who will play for 48 minutes the right way. And if I've got to sit some people, I'm going to sit some people but I'm looking for the right mix. This is the time to play with each other, to play good solid basketball. Protect the rim, rebound, execute and share the basketball. And I'm going to find the guys to do it."

The coach also gave a bit to Gilbert Arenas, for his predictions about scoring 50 points on the Blazers.

"It affected how they played. Defensively, they double teamed him and switched off on him. I think it really jacked them up twice to play to us. I don't know how it affected Gilbert, you'll have to ask him that but it really jacked them up."

EJ is right to be angry. He can't seem to find the right mixture of players to keep on the court when one of his big three are injured. It seemed as if Darius Songaila was going to step up, but he took a step back last night. Andray Blatche, while talented, is too inconsistent to be relied upon. There are four more games on this road trip, including tonight's tilt in Seattle, and someone besides Antawn Jamison is going to have to step up and play good basketball or this road trip is going to turn into a disaster. EJ himself could help by figuring out a player rotation so that his big men, Haywood, Blatche, and Songaila have a pretty good idea how much they are going to play every night. Hopefully, that player rotation will include little or no playing time for the perenially-overmatched Michael Ruffin.