Feb. 24, 2013; Portland, OR, USA; Newly acquired Portland Trail Blazers point guard Eric Maynor (6) takes a shot over Boston Celtics shooting guard Jordan Crawford (27) during the fourth quarter of the game at the Rose Garden. The Blazers won the game 92-86. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

When Terry Stotts took the podium following his Blazers’ 92-86 win over the Boston Celtics (the team’s first win in their last eight games), he kicked off his remarks by complementing his team’s play. He then said, with the kind of candor that has become one of his better trademarks, that he was shocked to find out that Portland was home to some many Boston Celtics fans.

He’s not the first one to make that claim. Two seasons ago, Dante Cunningham threw out a pretty notorious tweet complaining about the preponderance of green in the Rose Garden the night the Celtics came to town. It’s not a new thing.

Sunday night felt like a home game for both teams. Boston isn’t the only team from out of town that draws big crowds, but they’re up there with the Lakers and the Heat for biggest national fan bases around the league. So why is that important? Mostly because local fans of the team that plays 42 of its games in Portland pride themselves on being louder and more supportive than every other fan base in the NBA.

It was Wesley Matthews who made the big threes (five of them in total) and Damian Lillard who came up with the clutch and one. It was Victor Claver grabbing a season-high 10 rebounds in his first extended run of meaningful minutes. It was LaMarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum doing what they do best. All of which put the Blazers over the top Sunday. But it was the back and forth between Celtics fans and Blazer fans that turned Sunday night into one of the best home games of the season.

The Blazers don’t have a lot of meaningful games left. There are going to be nights in March and a few in April where there are going to be better things for Portlanders to do (the Timbers season is starting for real pretty soon and the weather is getting nicer by the day). Nights like Sunday have to be remembered, if simply so we can all remind ourselves that a pretty unsuccessful season had it’s high points and that those high points weren’t so bad in and of themselves.

Possibly, though, the most important thing to take away from Sunday’s game is that this roster and these rotations are what we are going to be seeing not only for the rest of this season, but likely for next season too. Eric Maynor made his debut Sunday night and played almost 15 effective (if a little rusty) minutes. Victor Claver logged 19 and a half minutes, all of them at the stretch four. Meyers Leonard spent a nice 16 and a half minutes on the floor, blocking a shot, grabbing six rebounds, scoring three points, and only picking up two personal fouls. These are three guys that are going to help the Blazers win games in 2013-14 and beyond. That we got to see them have good nights Sunday is simply the beginning.

I know it’s a bit strange to talk about three guys (Claver, Maynor, and Leonard) who combined for nine points when talking about Sunday’s game, a game in which all five of Portland’s starters scored at least 11 points. But my larger point is this: we all know what the Blazers’ core group is capable of. We know that Wesley Matthews can catch fire and that Damian Lillard was a rookie for like the first two seconds of his career and that LaMarcus Aldridge has probably the best mid range jumper of anybody over 6’10” in the NBA and that Nicolas Batum is a poor man’s Kevin Durant which makes him better than most of the guys in the league who play his position.

What this team needs is depth, guys who can pick up the slack when Portland’s starters go to the bench. We didn’t see a take-over kind of game from anybody on the Blazers’ second unit, but we did see some consistency from the bench that this team hasn’t had before.

Does this mean that Portland is about to rattle off a dozen wins and get back into the Playoff picture? Probably not. But it does mean that there is a chance this Blazer team will have something of real value to build on in the off-season. It does mean that regardless of how the wins and losses shake out, 2012-13 wasn’t a total loss. And it does mean that we’ve very likely seen the end of Luke Babbitt and Nolan Smith, the last two major draft day misses by the Blazers. Those are all good things.

Portland wasn’t flawless on Sunday. There’s still a lot of work to be done on the defensive end, especially when it comes to giving up shooting fouls late in the shot clock, and the Blazers have yet to come up with a go-to set or play when teams start doubling hard on Damian Lillard. But just as developing solid rotations will be part of Portland’s long-term building process, adjusting to opponents locking down on Dame and playing solid team defense are two changes the Blazers will have to make if they want to win big games in the future, of which there will hopefully be many.

Portland has a bit of a break before hosting the Nuggets on Wednesday. The Blazers’ next home game will be the second of a four-game home stand. It would behoove Portland to do no worse than a split of these next four games. A sweep would be preferable considering that two of the next three games are against the Charlotte Bobcats (the worst team in the NBA) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (the worst team in the Blazers’ conference).

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Feb. 24, 2013; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard Wesley Matthews (2) celebrates after hitting a three point shot during the fourth quarter of the game against the Boston Celtics at the Rose Garden. The Blazers won the game 92-86. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

Nov 30, 2012; Boston, MA, USA; Boston Celtics power forward Kevin Garnett (5) dribbles the ball against Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard Wesley Matthews (2) and center J.J. Hickson (right) during the first half at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

I was asked recently to contribute my thoughts on what Blazer fans have to look forward to in what remains of the 2012-13 season. It’s a tough question, what is their left to look forward to, considering that Portland is very very likely out of the Playoff race, hasn’t won a game in their last seven tries, and still have the Knicks, the Nets, the Lakers, the Thunder, and the Warriors to play at home, a four-game swing against four Eastern Conference playoff teams, and road dates with Oklahoma City, Golden State, and the Los Angeles Clippers left on their schedule.

Things could very easily go from bad to worse for the Blazers. It’s hard to convince the fan base that they have anything at all to look forward to.

But the truth is, there are at least a few things we should all try to feel positive about. Two of them are going to be on display when Portland takes on the Boston Celtics on Sunday in the Rose Garden. First among those two is that the Blazers tend to play their best basketball at home against the best teams in the league. Second: Eric Maynor.

When 2012-13 is laid to rest in the middle of April, we’ll all look back at what went down this season and remember that the Blazers beat both the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat at the Rose Garden in two of the best games of the season. As of this writing, the Spurs’ 44-13 record makes them the best team in the NBA. Incidentally, the Heat, with a record of 39-14 are the second best team in the NBA. Portland has proven that they can play with and beat the best two teams in the league.

Sunday, with the Boston Celtics in town, the Blazers will have another chance to best one of the better teams in the NBA. Boston is no longer one of the elite Eastern Conference teams, but they are still a damn sight better than Portland (at least record-wise) and in a lot of ways are the LA Lakers of the East (for this season and many others). Right now the Celtics are a heroic team, playing through injury, fighting for seeding at the bottom of the Eastern Conference Playoff picture. They’re also going to be the team coming out of the East that will be given the ever popular, SportsCenter headline favorite, “team nobody wants to face in the first round,” especially if Boston hits that magic number and ends up opposite the New York Knicks to kick off the Playoffs. Sunday should be a fun game. Blazer fans have that to look forward to.

Rebuilding is a long process with many ins and outs. General Managers have to balance what they have with what they can give with what they want to have. It’s a delicate act that go wrong in so many ways so quickly that some teams would rather be losers forever than risk leveraging the present in sake of the future. Neil Olshey came to Portland with the mandate to make this team better, to get this team back into the Playoffs on a regular basis, and to get this team COMPETING once they get to the Playoffs.

Olshey also has to do all that without jeopardizing what was developed before he showed up, and he also has to make everything work without the Blazers going over the salary cap. Portland is a small market team and its big market owner isn’t going to ignore that fact any longer.

Enter Eric Maynor. By trading basically nothing, and cutting a player making basically nothing who was doing basically nothing, for a guy who not even that long ago was considered the best back-up point guard in the NBA is a move that makes the team better (probably in the long-term, since I imagine Olshey and the brass look at a 25 year-old as not being just a rental player) without costing then anything. It’s the kind of move that Neil Olshey was hired to make. Blazer fans have the play of Eric Maynor (now and in the future) to look forward to starting Sunday.

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

Celtics Starting 5: PG Avery Bradley, SG Courtney Lee, SF Paul Pierce, PF Jeff Green, C Brandon Bass

Portland has two tasks on Sunday. First, they need to stop Paul Pierce, and second, they need to figure out a way to score.

Paul Pierce is getting up there in years, but he is still one of the best and most dynamic scorers in the NBA. He is also the heart and soul of this Celtics squad. As he goes, so goes his team. Figuring out a way to keep Pierce from having a huge night will be the Blazers’ most important job. That means a couple of things. First, Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum will have to play strong perimeter defense. Second, everybody else will have to work to keep Pierce off the line. And third, the entire Portland roster will have to crash the defensive glass. Letting Paul Pierce get more than one look at the rim on any given offensive possession is a recipe for disaster.

After stopping Pierce, the Blazers’ second-most important task will be figuring out how to score. The Celtics have been and will always be a defensive minded team. They’re going to try to out muscle Portland, they’re going to try to bully Portland, and they are going to make scoring almost impossible. To counter that, the Blazers need to focus on getting good shots (that means smart ball movement), they’re going to have to try hard to get to the line, and they need to crash the offensive glass. Second chance points could be a determining factor Sunday night. The team with the most second effort scores very well could win this game.

What to Watch For

• Who plays, for how long, and how well. Kevin Garnett sat out Boston’s win in Phoenix. I’m not listed KG among the starters for that reason, but there’s no reason to think he won’t be in action against the Blazers. Whether or not Garnett plays is important, how well he plays is just as important. LaMarcus Aldridge and KG have a history. The winner of that match-up is going to be important. Also how much and how well Eric Maynor plays is going to be important. I think Maynor will finish his 27 games with Portland averaging in the neighborhood of 25 minutes a night. Nolan Smith averages 8.3 minutes per game in the 31 games he’s played in; Ronnie Price averaged 13.1 minutes in his 39 appearances as a Blazer. If Maynor hits 25 minutes per, that will be about twice what Price played and just below three times what Smith has played. Many many things can be done with those minutes. Sunday could go a long way to showing how getting significant minutes from a back-up point guard affects the play of the Blazers. Another guy to watch RE: how much and how well they play is Meyers Leonard. Meyers will benefit the most fro the added minutes that come with meaningless late season games. He played well against the Lakers. Boston also doesn’t really have a center. Leonard still hasn’t had a break out game yet. He doesn’t have that many chances left.
• Will the Blazers realize how important winning this game is. The Playoffs are probably out of the picture, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something left to play for. Pride is one thing. Also, keeping fans in the seats. Sunday there is going to be a lot of Celtics’ green in the Rose Garden. It happens when popular East Coast teams come to Portland. If the Blazers want their remaining home games against the Knicks, the Nets, the Lakers, and the Thunder to feel like home games, they have to win.
• Eric Maynor. I’ve already mentioned him a couple of times, but pay close attention to the reaction he gets when checking into Sunday’s game for the first time. I expect a standing ovation.

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

Paul Pierce is fired up. Credit: David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

Ouch. When I said last week that this could, and probably would, get worse, Friday night in Boston was what I meant. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind though, seeing as the Celtics aren’t even the best team Portland is going to see on this road trip, which pardon my insensitivity is looking more like a death march.

It would be very easy to pile on following this game. I don’t think I’m going to do that. The Blazers are in trouble, we all know that. They’ve been in trouble for much of this season. We all know that too. They trailed in this game by more than 40. That means that when they get to Oklahoma City, there’s a chance they’ll get down by 100. I’ve never seen an empty Rose Garden, but if this kind of thing continues, that’s where we’re headed.

I’ve taken a little time to think about what I saw tonight, and to be honest I gave up on this one probably around the same time the Blazers did, and it’s hard for me to really come to a firm conclusion on what’s going on. Post-game, the question du jour from those who provide post-game questions was pretty simple: Have the players given up on Nate? I don’t think they’ve given up on Nate. I don’t even think they’ve give up on the season. And that’s what makes this all the more frustrating. It’s like they know they can play better. They’re trying to play better. They just aren’t. That’s a tough hole to climb out of.

Check Joe Freeman’s twitter timeline. Those aren’t quotes of professional basketball players that have given up on anything. Those are basketball players who are upset, frustrated, and confused. Just like we are. Consequently, those are the two guys that for sure will be Blazers in the future. Can’t say the same thing about anybody else on this roster.

I had the great pleasure of watching this game with my dad, and spending some time talking about the Blazers afterward. Naturally the conversation was heavy on Brandon Roy. And because right about now Portland fans need something to feel good about, I thought I’d forgo a recap of a horrible game that we’d all much sooner forget, and do this:

The Best of Brandon Roy as Presented by YouTube:

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Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject