The Think Tank

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last couple of days, you have no doubt heard that Brandon Roy single-handedly pulled the Blazers back from the brink of destruction on Saturday, outscoring the entire Dallas team in the fourth quarter and erasing an 18 point deficit to win the game 84-82 and tie up the series at two games apiece.

What do our beloved Blazers get for all their trouble?  Game Five tonight.  In Dallas.

The stats still favor the Mavericks in this game: They have a deeper bench, they have a lot of veteran savvy, and they have one of the best closers in the NBA.  Worst of all, according to ESPN’s John Hollinger, the win-loss record for series where the higher seeded team has won the first two games is 64-8.

However, there are several things for Blazer fans to be hopeful about.  First and foremost, Portland’s lanky defenders have done a good job of keeping Nowitzki contained for at least three quarters a game, and they did a great job of denying him the ball in the fourth quarter Saturday.  Second, emotions flow like tidal waves, and right now Portland is riding a really high one.  Third, losing a game when you had a 23 point lead with 13 minutes left is enough to shake anyone’s confidence, especially a team that is fighting the demons of early Playoff departures.  And finally, the Dallas Mavericks are one the Not-So-Elite Eight who have found themselves on the wrong side of that 64-8 ratio that Hollinger talked about in his article today.

No matter what demons may be lurking in the back of the Maverick’s minds, Dirk and Company aren’t going to lay down and give us anything.  Portland will need to scratch and claw its way to a first round victory.  So… what does this mean to you?  It means that you need to offer whatever prayers you can to whatever deity you admire… maybe offer up your first born… maybe poke pins in a little blonde-haired doll with a 41 on its back…  maybe even sacrifice an errant virgin or two… whatever it takes.  That’s what it means to be the Sixth Man.

The game will be aired at 5:30PM on KGW.

I picked up Shannon and we went out to Sylvan today around noon.

I shot for about 45 minutes or so on the practice range to get new sight marks (I had made some adjustments to my rest the last time I shot), with marginal success.  I started out shooting at 80 and thought I had a pretty good mark, although it was hard to tell for sure because I seldom got two arrows to land next to each other.

I started out shooting the Doinker stabilizer, but it just feels too light, so I switched it out for the 4-rod Kudlacek with the silver weights.  I had tried the other 4-rod with the heavier weights before, and it felt good, but it really hurt my shoulder after a day of shooting so I went with the lighter weight one to see if would be a little better, since it was heavier than the Doinker by lighter than the black 4-rod.

I also was using the knurled knob on my release today, which I just purchased from Lancaster.  For the first part of the day I had it in the inside hole on the release trigger, but eventually I moved it to the outer hole on the trigger.  I liked it better on the outer part.

After I got what I thought were pretty decent marks, I decided to walk the the A1 course.  I hadn’t shot a field course is probably 10 years, and I really felt it on a few targets.  The uneven footing and side-slanting hills were unfamiliar to me and translated into some missed shot, especially left and right with the side slopes.  I rarely ever look at my level, but I was trying to keep an eye on it today because I would level to the terrain which often times led to my bubble being buried in one side of the other, and naturally that meant arrows out the right or left, accordingly.

I also had some issues with my sight marks.  For the first 7-8 targets, my first arrow was low every time.  I eventually started adding a yard or so to everything over about 40 yards, and 2-3 clicks for everything between 25-40.  That helped a lot, but that is also when I started missing more from side to side thanks to the leveling situation mentioned earlier.

All-in-all I felt pretty good about the field course.  I only shot a 262, which is not really very good, but several of those points that I dropped were good shots that hit low because of poor sight marks.  262 puts me on pace for a 524, which is about where I expected to be based on the practice range shooting, and I actually think that without the sight marks problem I would have been in the 530’s somewhere, which isn’t really all that bad.  As I recall, low 540’s is about the best I ever did before, so this wasn’t a bad starting off point, all things considered.

After the field course, I went back up to the practice range and tried to get better marks.  I’m not sure what accounted for the change, but 80 yards was off by almost 2 full lines, and 20 was off a little bit too.  Both low.  Since 20 and 80 are the fixed distances that all the other calculations are based on (using Archer’s Mark for iPhone), it makes sense that everything would be off if those two were wrong.  And, since 80 was significantly off, it makes sense the longer distances were off more than the shorter ones.  After I got those marks shot in and re-entered them into Archer’s Mark, my calculated marks were much better.  I tested them by shooting 40 and 60, and both seemed pretty much spot on, although maybe just a click or two high.  Still top of the X ring at worst, though.

Since my shoulder was a little sore,  I decided to remove one of the silver weights on my stabilizer.  I chose one of the silver ones because they are lighter, and I only wanted to remove a little weight.  I’m hoping for a nice balance between being heavy enough to help me aim well, while being light enough so it doesn’t hurt my shoulder too much.

I also monkied with the knurled knob on my release at this point, moving it further out and rotating it up, so that it really got into the fleshing part of my thumb.  I really, really liked this.  Its a little twitchy, so I have to keep my thumb off of it the whole time I am drawing and settling in, but being able to get a good amount of my thumb on the release makes me get through the shot fast and easy.  It is really great.  My shoulder actually felt less tired and sore after 30 minutes of shooting this way than it did when I started that segment, which is fantastic.

Plus, it just makes my form feel natural.  I pull up, settle in, let the dot get into the spot, then I put that knob into the webbing on my thumb and about 1-2 seconds later bam! The shot goes.  Everything feels controlled, I’m not struggling or fighting my way through.  My form felt all around better too, more controlled, bigger explosion on the release side.  No fighting to keep my dot on the spot while I’m pulling through.  No craziness in the bowarm, where it explodes wierd, or collapses, or just feels crappy as soon I release.

This way it just feels smooth and simple.

I’ve had flashes of that feeling here and there since I started again, but this was the longest period I have gone feeling like it was pretty easy to hit spots.  And I was slapping arrows all the way out to 80 yards, on good shots.  I shot one 25 at 80 yards, and a couple 25’s and 24’s at 60 yards, with the misses coming off of shots that I knew were going to miss when I shot them because of aiming problems.

I feel very encouraged tonight.  I didn’t break any records today, but its another one of those performances that feels like something I can build on.  Although I do feel a little apprehensive as well:  So far, every day that I’ve left the range feeling encouraged has been followed up by a day that was just thoroughly frustrating.

Hopefully today will be the end of that streak.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Apr 17, 2011 2:27 PM Target: NFAA/IFAA Field Total score: 262

— Sent from my iPhone

The NBA Playoffs have officially arrived, and our #6 Portland Trail Blazers are set to face off  against the #3 Dallas Mavericks at 6:30PM tonight.

This is the match-up that I wanted to see, not because of the Mav’s history of First Round departures or because I think we are that much better than them, but simply because I think our players and strengths match-up better against Dallas than any of our other possible opponents, and therefore give us our best chance to move on to the Second Round.  That isn’t to say that it will be easy.  Dallas didn’t rack up 56 wins be accident.

This series has captured the attention of the whole league because the two teams are so well matched, especially since the Gerald Wallace trade.  Predictions from the top sportswriters  are about 50/50, with a razor thin edge going to Dallas, despite Jason Terry’s comments that he feels his team is the underdog in the series.

What does that mean to you?  It means you have to get yourself in front of the nearest television, don your luckiest Blazer paraphernalia (or least something red and black) , hoist your favorite beverage and cheer our boys on with all the furor you can manage!

The game will be aired on ESPN and locally on KGW.

Joel and I are going to ride in Reach the Beach this year on May 25th, one the northwests premier cycling events.  There are four routes of varying length, but we will be doing the whole enchilada: 104 miles, from Beaverton to Pacific City.

The ride is a benefit for the American Lung Association, and the proceeds go to the ALA to help fund research into various kinds of lung disease.  Given that Grandpa Rich passed away from lung cancer, this ride seemed like a no-brainer.  Good ride, good food, and a good cause.

Part of the registration requirement is that each rider needs to raise at least $100 dollars in donations to the American Lung Association by the beginning of the event.  To that end, I am hoping that some of you can help me in reaching that goal.

You can donate online via my personal Reach the Beach webpage, or you can download a form by clicking here if you would prefer to send a check.

Thanks!

The weather cooperated nicely today by being overcast but dry, so I took my bow out to Sylvan this afternoon to start getting it setup for the outdoor season.

I forgot to transfer my T-square to my new quiver (which I got as a birthday present from Mom and Mo), so I wasn’t able to really measure anything before I started messing around.  Still, for the 2613’s I had the nock point at zero when I had the T-square in the center of the launcher fork, so I should be able to get it back there again easily enough.

Since I didn’t have the square I just had to use the level to find the right spot for the rest.  I also had to level out he rest, because I had it tipped a little bit toward the strings (not on purpose, that is just how it wound up when I set it up the first time).  I leveled that to the cable guard – since there isnt’ really a good, level spot to measure on any where else – then I brought the rest up until the shaft was more or less level as well.  It was a little hard to know if it was dead level, since I had to jury-rig a system with my limb-pod and stabilizer to find “level”, so the setup was basically a rough starting point.

I started out shooting at 20 yards and it grouped pretty well, all X’s so I figured that was good and moved to 40.  I was a little bit wiggly, but more or less things seemed pretty good.  Good shots were mostly X’s or just out.  I wrote down my sight mark and moved on.  (I wasn’t using my new Archer’s Mark app because I didn’t have anything to get the measurements/weights that I need for the initial calibration).

When I moved out to 60 I noticed some left and right variation in the groups, and I also noticed that I was having a great deal of difficulty holding well.  I’d been planning on putting the Kudlacek stabilizer, so I went out to the car and grabbed the old 4 shaft stabilizer with the black weights.  I think these weights are heavier than the silver weights on the other bow.

It felt quite a bit heavier, but man what a difference the extra weight made in the aim.  At 60 yards I was holding pretty much inside-out spot, and the groups closed in to just a little bigger than the X ring, unless I did something that I knew as going to put it out.

I took a guess at the 80 yard mark, and my first shot hit 3 O’clock X line.  My next arrow was a little low left in the 4 (where I aimed it), and my next 3 were all spots: 1 X, one low five, and and one at 12 O’clock on the line.  My next end was about same.

I moved back to 40 for a few minutes, and I was holding inside-out X ring and slapping arrows together.  I doubled checked my 20 yard mark, and again I was holding very well and slapping arrows.

All in all I felt pretty good about how things went today.  I like the added weight and general feel of the Kudlacek stab, so I’ll probably stick with that in the future.  I want to shoot at distance a lot more, but I was pretty confident after shooting this afternoon.