I’m having deja vu and I think I kind of like it.
Back-to-back, home-and-home, Portland and Denver face off tonight in the Garden of Roses. Portland of course is hoping to erase the taste of last night’s loss out of their mouth. Denver on the other hand is looking for as back-breaking of a win as you can get in December. A Nugget win would send a clear message, one that I’m sure no one rooting for the Red & Black Attack wants to think about right now.
Tonight marks the 8th time the Blazers will complete a back-to-back. On the year they’ve swept one, lost both once and split 5 times. Portland’s 3-1 after losing the first game of a back-to-back so keep that in mind for you stat/karma heads.
We’re going to jump right into the keys to success since I think I’ve written entirely too many words about these two teams playing in a 24-hour span. A major league key to tonight is adjustments. With that being said, the Blazers right now should be the favorite in that category. Why? Well…they lost. Coming off a loss I’d expect them to be prepared to shake things up a little more than the Nuggets. Again, very interested to see how the coaching staff and players respond to playing a team back to back. It’s like a mini-playoff experiment. In the springtime you have to be able to make the right adjustments unless you want the broom to come out. We’ll see if we can.
Keys to success:
- Open the offense up. Last night, Portland got exposed for their overreliance on Brandon Roy. We’ve known that we go as far as he can take us but last night was the first time we finally saw it. Get the offense moving and let’s get other guys going. The offense looked way too stagnant last night. A lot of standing and watching B-Roy. I expect Roy to have a much, much better game though as he anticipates a lot of attention but I also expect Denver to have a similar mentality. Aka, YOU ARE NOT BEATING US BRANDON ROY. And yes I imagined George Karl chest-bumping people while Bobby Jones looks on bewildered. Don’t tell me that’s old news either.
- Attack the basket. Have to be the aggressor tonight. Denver got 39 free throw attempts to our 19 for a reason. Let’s mix in some dribble-drives with those jumpers.
- Energy. Blazers looked f-l-a-t last night as they tend to do in Denver. They got out-everythinged. Hustled…check. Rebounded….check. They weren’t the aggressors. That can’t be the story after tonight.
- Box out. Make up for getting beasted last night.
- Shut down the Nuggets X-Factors. You take JR Smith or Kleiza out and you should have a good chance. Billups will get his and I’m assuming with his activity Nene should play well, but you cut off one of their perimeter scorers and things should work out very well. I don’t know if JR Smith and Linas Kleiza can beat this team two nights in a row but I’ve been wrong before.
- Win the turnover battle. Denver will cough the ball up, let’s make sure we play a more solid game than last night.
- Stop fouling. Can’t send teams to the free throw line and let them get easy points, especially at home. Don’t let Linas Kleiza get to the line, COME ON!