So, some LaMarcus Aldridge guy sprained his ankle tonight. That’s cool. This Jeff Pendergraph fellow seems just fine with his career-high 14 rebounds and all. Blazers still beat the Clippers, and we all got Chalupas. Yahtzee!
At least that was the general consensus I gathered during and after the game at the Rose Garden, listening to other conversations like a 1977 Washington beat reporter. There was no eerie silence draped over the crowd when Aldridge left limping and only a few mutterings about his non-return. Not that you can read anything into that, but the fans seemed to take this injury [...]

The Blazers have waived Anthony Tolliver and sent Patty Mills to D-League Idaho Stampede. For some reason the snow makes me not want to link to this, so just take my word for it. Of all the rookies, Mills interests me the most because of his speed, so we’ll be keeping track of him in the next couple weeks.
In other breaking news, Shavlik Randolph, recently released from the Miami Heat, will become a Blazer once again on Wednesday:
@blazerbanter: BREAKING: #Blazers plan to sign Shavlik Randolph on Wednesday. Randolph expected to be in Portland for #Clippers game.
Somewhere, Ben Golliver is doing [...]

Welcome back to Earth.
After the nice diversion that was the road trip and Christmas Day winning streak, the 76ers gave the Blazers a giant dose of “Hey, remember that time both your centers were injured? Kthnxbye!” Philadelphia shot 57.7 percent, scored 60 points in the paint and got 58 points from the combination of Elton Brand, Sammy Dalembert and Marreese Speights on 25-of-33 shooting. That’s 75 percent shooting from Philly’s centers and power forwards. That’s why Portland lost.
It doesn’t get much more cut and dry than it did tonight. Portland’s transition defense was terrible with Philly’s 16 fast-break points hardly [...]

Difficult as it is to believe, that just happened. The Blazers, without half their cast of characters, beat the Nuggets, without one half of Chauncey Billups, on Christmas Day. It was like the Disney lineup thrashing the Looney Toons with Disney missing Goofey, Donald Duck, Mufasa, Genie, the crab from Little Mermaid and Buzz Lightyear while the Toons just had Daffy riding second-half pine. Of all the recent wins — Phoenix, Miami, Dallas, San Antonio — this was easily the most surprising.
I’m not sure I would believe anyone out there who said they hadn’t winced at the thought of Denver’s [...]

Here he is on last night’s game (the last section of the post):
If you simulate this game with the same shot attempts ten times, I’m not sure the Trail Blazers win more than three of the match-ups. Designating 30 of your 77 shot attempts as long 2-point jumpers is treacherous, but being lightning quick to the ball and to the glass has a way of mitigating those kinds of numbers.
One thing’s for certain: No two teams will be more interesting to watch during the “middle third of the season adjustment phase” than the Trail Blazers and Spurs.
In case you missed [...]

So, I’m going through a typical holiday travel day with airports full of families and an airplane made up of 57 percent kids, 23 percent parents who look ready to sell their children to passersby for five minutes of silence, 15 percent grumpy college kids hungover from finals celebration with the final five percent made up of innocent bystanders to the ensuing airborne madness.
And yet nothing on that five and a half hour class in abstinence drew more stares from my fellow travelers than the “Holy $%&#” I let out the moment we landed and I flicked off airplane mode. [...]

‘What the (curse word) basketball gods?”
That was the text that Coup sent to me last night. I wasn’t able to catch the game live, so that was how I found out about the latest in a long list of Blazers to get injured. Those are the words which lead to me learning about how Joel Pryzbilla went down in a heap, clutching his knee as I imagine an entire fanbase couldn’t believe what they were seeing. As you all know by now, Pryzbilla has reportedly gone down with a “ruptured right patella tendon and patella dislocation”, eerily similar to the [...]

Woe is us.
No, really. I’m serious. I’m not going to tell you to put your chin up — yet — and avoid all the doom and despair because nothing good comes of it. You are more than welcome to feel bad for yourself, for the team and for the city. It’s the natural human reaction, at least until things gets so ridiculous — like Roy getting an MRI on his shoulder — that you begin reacting to things like Billy Crystal and Co. after they saved Norman from the river at the end of City Slickers. So go ahead and [...]

And let the up and down emotional rollercoaster know as the 09/10 Blazer season continue as the Blazers take on the *cue ominous music* ….Texas Two-Step.
Unfortunately for the Blazers, we’re not talking about the country line dance, we’re talking about back-to-back road games in the state of Texas. It starts tonight in Dallas against the Mavericks and ends tomorrow in San Antonio. It remains one of the tougher road trips in the NBA considering how good the Texas teams have been this decade. Blazer fans need to pray for a split as that would mean they would come home from [...]

Hoopdata just gave many of us the best Christmas present we could have asked for: daily advanced box scores. Thanks to @blazersedge for the heads up. This really is just…wow. I’m giddy. This will be hugely useful, especially in tracking Portland’s offensive numbers to see where the points are coming from.