Raymond Felton’s atrocity exhibition Monday night against Utah was far worse than the box score indicated, as Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Sparks characterized a pair of costly 4th quarter turnovers by the Portland PG as indicative of “the lazy style for which he has been, repeatedly, criticized this season”. During a postgame interview, Felton told scribes, “”I’m kind of upset at myself, more so than anybody else,”, though if Ray believes he’s his own worst critic, he’s not yet the following from Blazer’s Edge’s Ben Golliver :
The best way to describe the two late turnovers — F-Bombs, perhaps? — would be to say that Felton lost his car keys. Players talk of “locking in” to the big moments; Felton locked himself out. His neglect of possession was paralyzing to viewers, as if the entire city was staring through a window at a child left unattended in a car seat.
Somebody do something! Bust open a window! Make a substition! Call a tow truck! Take the ball out of his hands! Jimmy the lock! Use him as a decoy! Anything but this sad, prolonged, tortuous neglect, a season-long ordeal that adds chapters faster than observers can keep up and has turned Felton into a tightly wound ball of frustration and denial. He briefly lost control of his mouth during his post-game comments, accidentally saying that “nobody hates to lose” and “it’s hard to swallow a win like that.” Those verbal typos can be forgiven but his clutch time power outage can’t be forgotten.