…the toughest losses of the season (so far)…

On Friday, I talked about my favorite wins of the season. It was fun thinking back to all the good wins of the season, even though I temporarily blanked and forgot about how we beat the Lakers. There is a flip-side to winning and success and that is the agony of defeat. The Blazers have lost 27 times to this date and I’d like to say that around the majority of them have been acceptable. And by acceptable I mean I could rationalize them or realize that a W just was not in the cards. Sandwiched in between there were some heart-breakers, head-scratchers and all around disappointments. Everyone has their own coping mechanism’s after a loss. These were the ones that probably made you do that.

And since most of you probably have a case of the Monday’s, we might as well deliver some content that levels with your moods. Here are what I believe to be (in no particular order) the 7 toughest losses of the season.

• @ Oklahoma City, February 6th, 93-102: I know I said there wasn’t an order to it but this definitely was on the upper echelon. It’s like when you’re ranking Will Ferrell movies, you might have found ”Talladega Nights” and ”Semi-Pro” both to be funny, but you know they are on different levels.  I’m not sure whether you can find it easily or not  since we moved, but I’m pretty sure sometime around that game I promoted drinking to ease the pain of this game. That’s never a good sign. This was a rough one not just because of who we lost to, but how we lost the game. I guess this was karma smacking me in the face for ripping on them non-stop all summer long, but boy did the Thunder ROLL. 37 in the first quarter, 60 in the first half and they never looked back. Ruff Ryders indeed. Not to mention this loss completely re-opened the ‘Oden v Durant’ argument except the Durantamaniacs were armed with ammunition. Not the best of times.
• vs. Orlando, December 9th, 109-108: This was the start of what I can honestly say was the roughest stretch of the season as a fan. This was the start of our longest losing streak of the year (3 – boy are we spoiled or what). Back to the game..this was also the beginning of some weird anti-clutch issues. Up 8 halfway through the 4th and actually up 5 with 1 minute left. And all hell broke loose. Blake turned it over, we forced a miss but Bogans tipped it to Rashard Lewis who nailed a three. Then another failed possession led to Turkoglu’s gut-wrenching, game-winning three. Yucky feeling.
• vs. LA Clippers, December 12th, 112-120 (2OT): This was the third loss in that losing streak I mentioned above. I’m not sure what was worse, Zach Randolph coming back and going off for 38 or Steve Blake showing everyone what he learned over the summer. And by that I mean by demonstrating the Triangle Choke, on himself, at the free throw line. In case you forget, Blake goes 1-for-5 from the line in the last 20 seconds, Baron Davis makes a Baron Davis play and then in the second OT there was no answer for Zach Randolph. And having to type the words ”there was no answer for Zach Randolph” just makes me want to vomit all over again.
• @ Boston, December 5th, 78-93: We weren’t supposed to win in Boston at this point and judging by the fact that the C’s have only dropped 6 of 36 home games…a lot of people aren’t supposed to win in Boston. But this was not pleasant to watch. Jamie Foxx says blame it on the alcohol, well I blame the pain of this loss on the hype. Coming into this game the Blazers had won 6 in a row and ESPN of course blew this out of proportion like we had arrived or something. Even worse watching this game was the fact that Portland actually brought it until collapsing in the last 3 minutes of the first half. The third quarter was pure agony as the Blazers got taken to school and KG started crawling all over the place. Never fun to get punished on national TV. At least Big Baby cried.
• vs. Dallas, December 25th, 94-102: This gets on here because of how we lost. Getting out-executed and outscored to the tune of 25-14 in the 4th quarter is bad enough. But it wasn’t like the Dallas superstars were the one killing us. Dirk was Dirk and Jason Terry made big shots, but Brandon Bass and Jose Juan Barea were out there doing there best Stockton-to-Malone impression. And it worked as they kept scoring for Dallas, adding a couple daggers on top of the typical ‘Jason Terry big 3’ against Portland. Baffling.
• @ Lakers, October 28th, 76-96: For months we wrote about optimism and a new start and not being able to wait for this team. And the hype was there and everyone was excited and feeling great. And then this game happened and completely rattled anyone who supported the Blazers. Leave it to the old rival Lakers to just beat the living hell out of the Blazers to start the season. Bad enough to lose by 20, even worse to lose by 20 to the Lakers. Portland looked every bit as young and inexperienced as the talking heads had used as a crutch to downplay them going into the season. Which only added to the frustration of this loss. And to add insult to injury Greg Oden went down again which just opened up a whole bunch of emotions. Laker beatdown + National TV embarrassment + talking heads doubting  Blazers + Oden injury/argument re-opening = no bueno. Simple math.
• @ Utah, November 5th, 96-103: This more makes it because of my absolutely hatred for the Jazz and how this game just brought all sorts of flashbacks to horrible memories. Blazers are up 10 with two minutes left in the third and find themselves down by 2 points with 7 minutes left in the fourth. Not just that but I mean during the comeback Brevin Knight is making jumpers?!?! Kirilenko is making jumpers?!?! Ronnie Brewer is hitting threes?!?! Ugh. I really can’t stand Utah.

Honorable Mention: Both Philly losses, at Dallas, at Charlotte, at Atlanta, at Cleveland, vs. New Orleans

What are your thoughts? Did I miss any? You have any personal favorites out there?