Blazers Optimistic Team Downplays Troubles Between Strickland, Carlesimo And The Robinsons

Rod Strickland is quoted in the newspaper as criticizing the coach again. James Robinson and Clifford Robinson get in a name-calling shoving match, ending with James throwing a bucket of grout at Cliff, but hitting a sportswriter with it instead.

And the Portland Trail Blazers blow some late chances at the free throw line and lose at home to Western Conference powers Seattle and Utah.

It’s been a weird week in Blazers land. But Strickland, Cliff Robinson and coach P.J. Carlesimo insist that this team is no powder keg on the verge of a terminal explosion. Inconsistent, certainly. Underachieving, no doubt. But not a team on the brink of self-destruction.

“I think we’re a good team,” Cliff Robinson said. “It’s just a matter of us continuing to believe in ourselves and what we’re trying to do out there.”

The situation between Strickland and Carlesimo has been simmering for a year. Last season, Strickland told reporters he didn’t like the coach and wanted out. In training camp before this season, Strickland said he and the coach could work together, despite their personality differences.

But twice this season Carlesimo has benched Strickland for the first quarter for violating team rules. Then after Monday’s 92-88 loss to Seattle, Strickland criticized Carlesimo for not calling more plays for him down the stretch.

After Wednesday’s 98-94 loss to Utah, Strickland said he really didn’t mean to come off as so critical. He had sat out nearly all of the third quarter with back spasms and simply wondered why he’d been put back into the game if he wasn’t going to be used more in the offense. He said he just wanted to be more useful to the team.

“Now they’re thinking I’m trying to stir up something, but that really was not the case,” Strickland said.

Strickland has a penchant for saying what he feels at any given moment, a trait he knows gets him into trouble.

“Sometimes I get frustrated and I may say something just off a reaction,” he said, “and the next day I think, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I could have just kept that to myself.’ I think that’s part of the problem.”

Strickland and Carlesimo won’t ever be great buddies, but Strickland said he still thinks the two can co-exist on the same team.

“I think the bottom line is that we can get along on the court. When we’re between the lines, we can communicate and whatever,” he said. “Off the court, we don’t have to see eye to eye about anything.

“I think I’m kind of strong-headed, and he may be as well, and I think we have to come to a happy medium.”

As for the squabbling Robinsons, it’s just one of those things that happens from time to time, Portland’s Buck Williams said.

“Even when we were winning a lot of games, we still had situations where you had different confrontations during practice,” Williams said. “It just wasn’t reported. It’s just the nature of the game.”

This problem began when James Robinson apparently took issue with something Cliff said during practice Tuesday. When the players went to the locker room, the argument escalated into profane name-calling and shoving. James got a cut on his forehead. Cliff scraped an elbow. Enraged, James picked up the bucket of grout and flung it at Cliff, hitting a sports writer instead.

Both players apologized to the writer, Ken Vance of the Columbian in Vancouver, Wash. By Wednesday night, the Robinsons were joking with each other before the game. They even were at the heart of a rally that brought Portland from 23 points down in the fourth quarter to a near victory.

“Me and James are fine,” Cliff Robinson said. “Me and James have always been good friends. It was just an incident that got a little out of hand, and it’s over.”

Portland is 21-23 as it heads out on a four-game road trip into the East.