Blazers

Blazers: 14-11 (4th Northwest Division) Rockets: 14-11 (2nd Southwest Division) Game Details: Rose Garden Arena, Portland, OR. 7:00 PM. TV: CSN. Radio: 750 AM (KXTG) Projected Blazer Starting Lineup: PG Jamal Crawford (#11, 6’5’’, Michigan), SG Wesley Matthews (#2, 6’5’’, Marquette), SF Gerald Wallace (#3, 6’7’’, Alabama), PF LaMarcus Aldridge (#12, 6’11’’, Texas), C Marcus Camby (#23, 6’11’’, Massachusetts) Projected Rocket Starting Lineup: PG Kyle Lowry (#7, 6′, Villanova), SG Kevin Martin (#12, 6’7”, Western Carolina), SF Chandler Parsons (#25, 6’9”, Florida), PF Luis Scola (#4, 6’9”, Tau Ceramica, Argentina), C Samuel Dalembert (#21, 6’11”, Seton Hall) Portland’s final home match-up [...]

Oh boy. Where to start with this one. Well, I guess we can start with the obvious. In my humble opinion, LaMarcus Aldridge cleanly blocked Kevin Durant’s driving layup with six seconds remaining in Monday night’s fourth quarter. The officials saw it differently. And that’s just how it goes sometimes. The worst part of the goal tending debacle–beyond the simple fact that a blown call led to an underwhelming overtime period in which the Blazers couldn’t do anything and ended with one of the poorest possessions in recent memory–is that that is all we are going to remember from what [...]

Blazers: 14-10 (4th Northwest Division) Thunder: 18-5 (1st Northwest Division) Game Details: Rose Garden Arena, Portland, OR. 7:00 PM. TV: CSN. Radio: 750 AM (KXTG) Projected Blazer Starting Lineup: PG Jamal Crawford (#11, 6’5’’, Michigan), SG Wesley Matthews (#2, 6’5’’, Marquette), SF Gerald Wallace (#3, 6’7’’, Alabama), PF LaMarcus Aldridge (#12, 6’11’’, Texas), C Marcus Camby (#23, 6’11’’, Massachusetts) Projected Thunder Starting Lineup: PG Russell Westbrook (#0, 6’3”, UCLA), SG Daequan Cook (#14, 6’5”, Ohio State), SF Kevin Durant (#35, 6’9”, Texas), PF Serge Ibaka (#9, 6’10”, Ricoh Manresa, Congo), C Kendrick Perkins (#5, 6’10”, Clifton J. Ozen HS) OK, this [...]

Two words. Five syllables. Ni-co-las Ba-tum. Saturday’s game included a lot of highlights, defensively, offensively, execution-wise. But there’s only thing that anybody is really going to remember when they look back at Portland’s impressive and important blowout victory of Denver at the Rose Garden Saturday night. And of course, that’s Nicolas Batum. In my preview I mentioned that the play of Nicolas Batum would be key, especially since he’s missed the last two. However, I did say that he needs to come back and attack the basket, mentioning that his jumper is nice and all but he shouldn’t fall in [...]

Blazers: 13-10 (4th Northwest Division) Nuggets: 15-8 (2nd Northwest Division) Game Details: Rose Garden Arena, Portland, OR. 7:00 PM. TV: KGW. Radio: 750 AM (KXTG) Projected Blazers Starting Lineup: PG Raymond Felton (#5, 6’1’’, North Carolina), SG Wesley Matthews (#2, 6’5’’, Marquette), SF Gerald Wallace (#3, 6’7’’, Alabama), PF LaMarcus Aldridge (#12, 6’11’’, Texas), C Marcus Camby (#23, 6’11’’, Massachusetts) Projected Nuggets Starting Lineup: PG Ty Lawson (#3, 5’11’’, North Carolina), SG Aaron Afflalo (#6, 6’5’’, UCLA), SF Danilo Gallinari (#8, 6’10’’, Milan, Italy), PF Al Harrington (#7, 6’9’’, St. Patrick’s High School), C Nene (#31, 6’11’’, Sao Carlos, Brazil) [...]

Well this would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Portland is going to have some big road games in February, in LA against the Lakers and in Dallas against the Mavericks, so losing in Sacramento to the Kings is not a major vote of confidence for this team. At least it’s more of the same, and not some new fresh problem that the Blazers are going to have to deal with going forward. Every time Portland has lost on the road the story has been about the same. LaMarcus Aldridge has played well, and that’s about it. It bodes [...]

Blazers: 13-9 (4th Northwest Division) Kings: 6-15 (5th Pacific Division) Game Details: Power Balance Pavilion Sacramento, CA. 7:00 PM. TV: CSN. Radio: 750 AM (KXTG) Projected Blazers Starting Lineup: PG Raymond Felton (#5, 6’1’’, North Carolina), SG Wesley Matthews (#2, 6’5’’, Marquette), SF Gerald Wallace (#3, 6’7’’, Alabama), PF LaMarcus Aldridge (#12, 6’11’’, Texas), C Marcus Camby (#23, 6’11’’, Massachusetts) Projected Kings Starting Lineup: PG Tyreke Evans (#13, 6’6’’, Kentucky), SG Jimmer Fredette (#7, 6’2’’, Brigham Young), SF John Salmons (#5, 6’6’’, Miami), PF Jason Thompson (#34, 6’11’’, Rider), C DeMarcus Cousins (#15, 6’11’’, Kentucky) This is going to be [...]

Another game I won’t spend too much time recapping, but at least this time I have a decent excuse. I didn’t have the chance to listen to or watch a single minute of this one. I did, however, follow all the action on my phone, and I think I got a pretty good sense of what this one was like in person. Not much of a game. Portland did what they needed to do; they took care of business. If we can spend copious amounts of digital ink speculating on what it is that’s killing the Blazers on the road, [...]

Blazers: 12-9 (4th Northwest Division) Bobcats: 3-19 (5th Southeast Division) Game Details: Rose Garden Arena, Portland, OR. 7:00 PM. TV: CSN. Radio: 750 AM (KXTG) Projected Blazers Starting Lineup: PG Raymond Felton (#5, 6’1’’, North Carolina), SG Wesley Matthews (#2, 6’5’’, Marquette), SF Gerald Wallace (#3, 6’7’’, Alabama), PF LaMarcus Aldridge (#12, 6’11’’, Texas), C Marcus Camby (#23, 6’11’’, Massachusetts) Projected Bobcats Starting Lineup: PG Kemba Walker (#1, 6’1’’, Connecticut), SG Gerald Henderson (#15, 6’4’’, Duke), SF Boris Diaw (#32, 6’8’’,Cormeille-en-Parisis, France), PF Tyrus Thomas (#12, 6’10’’, Louisiana State,), C DeSagana Diop (#7, 7’, Oak Hill Academy, Mouth of Wilson, [...]

We’re one month down into this new year, and we’ve now had a chance to get a better look at this Blazer team. Twenty-one games in by January means that Portland’s first February game will close out the season’s opening third. The league is still pretty open although both conferences have seen teams rise to the top and stay there. The good is that the Blazers have made it through the first full month of basketball without falling to the very basement of the league with teams like the Sacramento Kings or Washington Wizards. The bad is that Portland is, [...]