The back-court tandem of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis face off against Portland on Saturday. Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

The story on the Blazers right now is that a week ago they were winning close games and this week they’re losing them. I wrote about it my recap of Portland’s latest loss (Wednesday night at home against Kyrie Irving the Cleveland Cavaliers). My council was, and still is, to not get too bent out of shape about the Blazers’ recent losing streak.

At this point in 2012-13, Portland’s ceiling is probably 40-42 wins (that number goes down in anybody gets hurt and could go up if somehow Neil Olshey pulls some trade deadline magic and turns Nolan Smith and/or Luke Babbitt into a serviceable and playable asset). Forty-one wins is .500 and doesn’t get the Blazers into the Playoffs. Forty-six to 48 wins will probably be enough to get into the post-season. Getting to that number is a bit of a stretch for this team, though.

Losing to Cleveland (and OKC, Denver, and Golden State before that) was regressing to .500, where this team probably should be. And because regression works both ways, winning on Saturday against the Milwaukee Bucks would fit right into Portland’s statistical narrative. However, if you are unconvinced that the Blazers are in fact a .500 team, losing on Saturday (and losing more than winning just in general) is something to try and get used to considering at this point Portland has still won more games than they’ve lost.

Blazers Starting 5:PG Damian Lillard, SG Wesley Matthews, SF Nicolas Batum, PF LaMarcus Aldridge, C J.J. Hickson

Bucks Starting 5: PG Brandon Jennings, SG Monta Ellis, SF Ersan Illyasova, PF Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, C Larry Sanders

The last time the Bucks played, the dealt a death blow to the Alvin Gentry era in Phoenix. The last two times Milwaukee has faced Portland, the Bucks were winners going away. The Blazers were on their way out both times; Milwaukee was fighting for the Playoffs that they would eventually miss.

The Bucks and the Blazers are just about in the same spots in their respective leagues (hanging around .500 and looking at the Playoffs). The primary differences are that Milwaukee has “parted ways” with its coach and could be heading toward a sell-off and rebuild (depending on how the next month or so shakes out), and Portland is overachieving and outpacing expectations. Not sure which place is better to be, although having come out of a sell-off and rebuild, from a fan’s perspective it’s much better to be on the upswing than on the down-slide.

Match-ups for Saturday aren’t going to be exactly like Wednesday’s (where one guy was basically all Portland needed to focus on), but playing 48 minutes against Kyrie Irving is about as good a preparation as a team can get for facing the back-court tandem of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis. If you split Kyrie into two players, you would probably get Jennings and Ellis. Monta is dangerous attacking on the pick and roll, and Jennings can, when rolling, basically hit from anywhere on the floor.

I’m all for throwing Damian Lillard on Brandon Jennings. He has to learn to play defense at some point, the sooner the better. That being said, taking a note out of Byron Scott’s playbook (and the playbook of every NBA head coach since Lillard showed that stopping him was the first step toward stopping the Blazers) and having Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum guard Ellis and Jennings might not be such a bad idea.

The downside to Wes and Nic defending over a position, of course, is that Lillard has to guard somebody. Ersan Illyasova is a shooter, as his replacement Mike Dunleavy Jr. Batum’s length is needed on those guys. Because of that, Wesley will likely take Monta, and Damian will be tasked with trying to slow down Brandon Jennings.

For my money, Lillard vs. Jennings will be the match-up to watch. Jennings isn’t Kyrie, not really even close, but he’s a good shooter and he’s supremely confident. There’s no doubt that he’ll see Dame as a target to take down, much the same way I’m sure Kyrie did and the rest of the young guards in the NBA have done/will do.

I know that Dame is not a great on-the-ball defender, but I believe he has the potential. The best we can hope for on Saturday, though, is that Jennings has a tough shooting night and doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. He can win games by himself, he can also lose them by himself.

As for Monta, he’s been a Blazer killer in the past, but in two games against Portland as a Buck, he hasn’t had that much of an impact. Milwaukee will put him in pick and rolls all night. The important thing for the Blazers will be to keep him out of the lane and off the free throw line. Like Jennings, Monta is a shooter. He’s not quite as reliable as Jennings, and for that reason, trying to limit him to long contested jump shots will be the way to go.

On this inside, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is a lot like J.J. Hickson. He gets a ton of rebounds and scores almost entirely on busted plays. Larry Sanders is something of a revelation this season. His per game scoring average in 2012-13 is double what it was last season (even though by per 36-minute stats his improvement isn’t that stark considering that his minutes have also doubled), and he’s become a favorite among basketball Twitter. I don’t know a ton about Sanders, but I do know that the Blazers have thus far struggled against more traditional centers. Sanders went for 19 in Phoenix, which was a season high, and did almost all of his damage right in front of the rim.

Sanders isn’t on the same level as DeAndre Jordan or Nikola Pekovic, but if Portland gets too keyed in on Milwaukee’s back court, there’s a chance they’ll give up easy buckets inside. Easy buckets inside killed the Blazers on Wednesday (even if Kyrie mostly killed Portland on Wednesday with his scoring, there was plenty of residual damage done by Tristan Thompson being left unguarded on the hard double-team), and if they let Milwaukee get a lot of them, they will kill them again on Saturday.

What to Watch For

• LaMarcus Aldridge. LA is on the short list of All-Star reserves. It doesn’t seem all that fair, considering an All-Star nod should be based on the whole first half of the season and not just a few games, but a reserve selection can be influenced one way or the other by the games immediately preceding the mid-season showcase. LaMarcus has played pretty well as of late. If he can finish the stretch leading up to next weeks reserve announcement, I think he’s in. That being said, he has to help Portland win. Having a winning record is a go-to for All-Star selection.
• Will the Blazers get out to a fast start. Slow starts are wrecking Portland right now. Even two weeks ago, when they were winning close games, they were getting down early. If the Blazers can get out and attack the Bucks in the first quarter on Saturday, they’ll put themselves in a good spot to get a win. Slow starts are an issue that has been brought up, so expect Portland to actually address it.
• The bench. The bench. The bench. One Portland reserve having a good game will win this one for the Blazers. And by a good night, I mean at least 10 points. Will Barton, I’m looking at you.

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

Yes, the Blazers took their foot off the gas late in the fourth quarter and allowed Milwaukee to get within 11, but was that really that much of a surprise to anyone? That sort of thing happens in nearly every NBA game, and it’s not as though the Blazers roster is defensively constructed to hold leads for entire halves. It was a little better than a fool’s gold run from the Bucks, but it still belonged in a fool’s purse. Call it fool’s platinum.

The lead was built on that defense, which gave up 16 first-quarter points and limited the touches Andrew Bogut was getting in the paint. Ersan Ilyasova isn’t one to make a team pay for doubling up Bogut with efficient shots, and though he finished with 24 points, he scored exactly one basket at the rim. When Bogut only gets eight looks at the rim, the Blazers can live with that. I’d like to say the Bucks were forced into bad shots, but their offense looked OK in the first quarter. Portland just collected some timely turnovers and ran with it, aided by Brandon Jennings’ being thrown off his game — or just playing a sloppy version of his game — by Andre Miller taking him into the post and old-man’ing him.

The offense was all checkmarks. Less than 20 attempts from 16-23 feet. At least 20 shots at the rim. 42 points in the paint. At least 40 percent shooting from downtown. And every player that was on court for at least 18 minutes contributed at least a point per possession used. On a typical night, one or two Blazers might achieve that mark. Tonight, almost every single player. Good stuff.

The Bucks didn’t have much of an answer for team ball. Mbah a Moute never had great position to guard Brandon Roy because the Blazers never let him by moving the ball and moving Roy. Ilyasova was fundamentally decent guarding Aldridge, but LaMarcus had his mojo working so it didn’t matter. The Bucks are 5th in defensive efficiency but allowed 127 points per 100 possessions, which relative to the rest of the league would be, the worst. A great offensive night for Portland without them doing anything they don’t normally do, and without Milwaukee’s two best player doing much on offense, like going to the grocery store, buying all your usual items and somehow saving 20 dollars more than the norm because you hit sales on the big ticket items.

Twitter Thoughts:

@hurrakane212: Great win, though it’s disheartening to keep losing leads like this.

@blazeoflove: Aldridge had his classic “pretty” game, but the 1 free throw attempt is further proof of his one-sided game.

@theblazerguy: Amazing how reassuring it was when Miller re-entered the game. He’s been solid lately.

Individual Thoughts:

Brandon Roy really, really needed a night to just chill, do his thing and go home. How do I know? I don’t, but nobody gets through a season unscathed doing as much as he’s been doing. Of course, he managed less than 30 minutes and still had to go to the locker room for hamstring treatment, but it sounds like it’s nothing horrific. And he still scored 22 points on 10 (!) shots. Efficiency, you have pleased SJ.

Aldridge looked more himself than he has since returning from the ankle injury, which is nothing but a good thing. He didn’t mix things up a whole bunch in the paint, but the shot was falling in all forms — enough to work the offense through him — he was active on defense and dished a season-high six assists. Some of the high-low passes to Juwan Howard gave me, and I’m sure plenty of other folks, flashbacks (forwards?) to Oden days.

Juwan Howard made it tough on the bigger body of Andrew Bogut and made his shots. Surely he will sleep soundly in his hyperbaric chamber tonight.

Andre Miller was the biggest influence on things not getting out of hand in the fourth quarter, settling the offense and getting to the line a few times to slow things down. That long two he hit when the Bucks were within 13 might have been the shot of the game, but the oop to Aldridge was just as big.

Four assists and no turnovers for Steve Blake, who had his best game since pneumonia. He even ran a nice fast break in the first half to get Jeff Pendergraph a layup. Kudos.

Pendergraph was a defensive standout, blocking a pair of shots while keeping the Bucks from consistently getting anywhere they wanted inside. Not a box-score kind of night, but a good one if anyone in the world had the means of correctly calculating defensive production.

Jerryd Bayless got bailed out shooting a couple bad jumpers and mostly didn’t look as aggressive as we’re used to seeing from him. It was a little odd that he got just 18 minutes and played so little in the second half, but Steve Blake was the better player this evening. There, I said it. I’m so edgy. I should be on talk radio.

Rudy Fernandez looked spry and fleet footed for most of his 15 minutes, but it was clear that 15 minutes was enough. It will likely take him some time to get his body groovin’, but he mostly looked like himself.

Milwaukee comes into tonight struggling. Since defeating the Blazers in the Bradley Center, the Bucks have lost 9 of their last 13 games. Coming into tonight they have only won 4 of 17 road contests and are 2-5 against Western Conference opponents on the road. Add onto that they just got the devastating news that Michael Redd is done for the season after tearing his ACL and MCL in his left knee. Redd may only be averaging 11 points a game this season, but his sweet stroke and ability to put the ball in the hole will be missed a ton. Even if he isn’t at his top, defenses HAVE to gameplan and give Redd attention. On the year without Redd the Bucks are 9-8. Without him in the lineup, Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut’s life just got a lot tougher.  Milwaukee’s biggest problem is they are offensively challenged with inconsistencies surrounding who is going to score for them. We’ll talk about them in a second but after Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut, it’s question mark city for the Bucks. The only other scorers averaging double figures are Luke Ridnour (11.3), Ersan Ilyasova (10.9) and Hakim Warrick (10.6). All talented but none could be considered consistent with a straight face or loss of credibility.

Back to Jennings and Bogut, containing them is a major part of whether or not Portland comes out with a W tonight. If you forgot, both had monster games against Portland last month. The thought of a somewhat weakened Blake having to guard Brandon Jennings makes me cringe. Who am I kidding, a full strength Blake guarding Jennings makes me nervous. The worrisome part is that Bogut’s 27 and 9 came with Joel Pryzbilla in the lineup. He is on the sidelines and the Blazers frontline is full of heart and desire but a little lacking in size. Bogut comes into tonight averaging 16 and 11 this month and the Bucks are a staggering 11-1 when he scores 17+  and 7-1 when he scores 20+. Obviously, key #1 is to shut Bogut down. I think LaMarcus could do a good job but at the same time that’s risking foul trouble.  The true killer in last month’s game was Luke Ridnour who dropped a smooth 20. If the Bucks can get a third scoring option, they become more dangerous.

For Portland, it’s a night where they don’t have to worry about Kobe Bryant or LeBron James so that’s a relief. This is a very winnable game, if Portland takes care of business. The margin of error is still very slim, as even though this team can win games they can just as easily lose them. Thje good news is that I highly doubt Brandon Roy will have as inefficient performance as he did in Milwaukee. 23 points on 24 shots is not going to get the job done. Also, great news could come in the form of the return of Rudy Fernandez who has been out of the lineup since December 5th. In the back of my head I wonder how his return will impact Jerryd Bayless and Martell Webster, just like I wonder how the return of Blake could impact Andre Miller.

Keys to the game

Don’t let them score 100: Seriously. Milwaukee is 7-3 when they score 100+ and 8-17 when they don’t. Portland is 1-11 when they give up 100. Defense, clap clap.

Contain Bogut: As stated above the Bucks are 11-1 when he scores 17 or more and 7-1 when he scores 20 or more. On the flipside, Milwaukee is only 1-7 when he scores in single figures. They’re pretty freaking good when he plays well and the opposite when he doesn’t. He’s a major key to this game and the harder we make it on him, the easier a W will come. Obviously, Brandon Jennings is a major part as well but I’m more concerned about Bogut because of his bigger impact on the team. Jennings’ going off does not have as huge of an impact as Bogut’s does as far as winning and losing. Unless he drops 55 we should be good. Fun fact:  when Jennings scores 17 or above the Bucks are only 9-11.

No third scoring option: Can’t let Ridnour get going like he did last month, can’t let Delfino or Bell hit threes, can’t let Warrick get easy baskets. They can struggle offensively, so lets hurt them by not letting them get a third scoring option.

Roy must be efficient: This will be a key for the rest of the year. He struggled in Milwaukee at the end of that road trip, if he plays a Roy-esque game the Blazers should be in great shape.

LaMarcus Aldridge: He went off on the Bucks in Milwaukee and looks to finally be rounding back into the LMA we all know and love after the 18 and 13 against Cleveland. Tonight would be a nice night to send an “I’m back” statement to the world.