“Our Goal is to average 100 points a game”

The Oregonian: There will be new players, a new playing style and some new wrinkles to the Trail Blazers tonight when they open their exhibition season at the Rose Garden against the Los Angeles Clippers.

The most noticeable change figures to be the Blazers’ offense because players spent much of training camp pushing the tempo and trying to create easy baskets. In coach Nate McMillan’s first two seasons in Portland, the Blazers have been among the league’s worst at scoring, finishing last in 2005-06 (88.8 points) and second to last (94.1 points) in 2006-07.

“Coach told us at the beginning of the year that our goal is to average 100 points a game,” guard Jarrett Jack said. “So this will definitely be a new introduction to the new pace we’ve got going on. It’s a different style than people are used to since Coach has been here, and I hope they enjoy it.”

So far, McMillan has enjoyed the intensity and aptitude of this team, but he has yet to endorse the Blazers’ new offense as an effective weapon.

“The one thing we are seeing is that we are playing faster, but we are making a lot of mistakes,” McMillan said. “So I think you are probably going to see a lot of mistakes from us trying to play fast, but we do want to up the tempo by pushing the ball up the floor. We are not going to be the Phoenix Suns — we don’t have that type of team — but we should be faster than we have been in the past.”