I have no idea what a scaphoid bone is, but Joel has an avulsion on his right hand. We all know he’s a tough guy, so it’s no surprise that he’ll try to play through it. Maybe it will affect some of his scoop-shots around the basket, and maybe he’ll try to block more shots with his left hand, but until I see it really hampering the Thrilla, we won’t make to big a deal of it. This is at least his second hand/wrist injury in a year though, which is curious.

Jason Quick says don’t call him soft.
Ric Bucher says the Blazers are only going as far as LMA takes us.

Don’t want to push down the excellent work that Coup has been doing from the Garden, but let me tell you this much:
Probably my favorite Blazer win of the Nate Era and I feel like in March we will look back to this date.
Ecstatic.
UPDATE: I write this at about 10:30 AM Pacific Time…and I’m not sure what else can really be added about last night’s effort. Reading around there are only so many words that can be said. Just a great, great win on so many levels. You know the score by now you don’t need me going into details. [...]

-That first quarter didn’t go so well. The Blazers look like they’ve concentrated on their transition defense, as they have knocked a few long outlet passes out of the way. Oden and LaMarcus have manned up in the post just fine, but turnovers are crippling Portland. Bayless had his first pass of the night stolen by Rondo, and another perfectly fine pass bounced right off the hands of Travis Outlaw. Those kinds of things cannot happen against the Boston Celtics.
Meanwhile, Boston is abusing Portland on offense. They are continually getting open shots on the left wing and Rondo has had [...]

I’m in the building tonight and will have plenty of coverage later on (I think I’m going to do some in-game updates for you). Roy is confirmed out and Rudy will start, with Bayless getting the backup minutes. Since Blogger won’t let me put up audio, I have to make movies of it to get it up here. I’ll get Roy’s media session up later, but in the meantime, here’s Nate McMillan’s pregame audio:

Well, almost glad my internet went out on me until about an hour until the game started. My pre-thoughts would have been crapped on with the news that Brandon Roy is listed as doubtful. I’m guessing doubtful means o-u-t. My personal take? I don’t think he should play and really he should take as much time as he needs to be 100%. It’s still January, the world won’t come to an end. The last thing anyone needs is for that hamstring to get worse instead of better, those can always tend to linger.
This would normally be the space where I [...]

Well, damn. Roy does bring up a good point that the Blazers have four very tough games in a row coming up, and if taking one game off will make him healthy then it probably makes sense, but it’s tough to see Portland beating Boston without the maestro. That being said, Rudy would move into the starting lineup and Bayless would get the backup minutes, so it could be interesting to see how some players react in different roles. Bayless in particular was impressive in the garbage minutes against Boston when Doc Rivers was forced to put the starters back [...]

Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune did a nice lengthy interview with Rudy Fernandez, which you can find here. It’s Rudy talking — I shouldn’t have to say much more than that to make you read it.

Not much to speculate on here, the article says it all. Please spare the web the pain of “Oden is injury prone, we should have picked Durant” garbage. It sounds like all Greg did was get tripped up near the end of practice and that happens to everybody. Considering what happened the last time out against Boston, I’m guessing both guys are going to be on the court tomorrow night to prove they can hang.

If you haven’t noticed over the past week-plus, SJ has been holding things down by himself while I drove around Europe, and he’s had things on absolute lock. I’m back in the country now, watching the Falcons possibly steal a first-round bye from the Caroline Panthers in an Atlanta Airport lounge and trying to catch up on all things Blazers. Nice to see a solid response from the fellas after Christmas Day, but not having seen anything but highlights I will refrain from comments or analysis.
I did get over to Oregonlive and see Jason Quick post this story from the [...]