Welcome to the TGIF edition of your Afternoon Blazer! (Sometimes we like to get an early start on the weekend, ya know?)
What’s happening out there in Trail Blazers Land on this wonderful, wonderful Friday?
Why so wonderful, you ask?
Well, first of all, it’s Friday. And Friday is always a good day, even for those of us who actually like our jobs.
Second of all, Damian Lillard’s an All-Star. (He’ll be on Steph Curry’s squad.)
Finally, the Trail Blazers have won four of five. And they’re coming off one of their best wins of the season.
So the fellas have Rip City in an anticipatory tizzy.
Has Portland finally turned the corner? Are the Trail Blazers finally, ya know, for real?
How Good Can the Trail Blazers Be?
If Wednesday’s 123-114 thrashing of the Minnesota Timberwolves is any indication, then it looks like this team can be very good, indeed.
Problem is, we’ve seen similar performances from the Trail Blazers this season. And they’ve yet to sustain that type of excellence for extended stretches. (Portland hasn’t won more than three consecutive games this season, for example.)
But something about that win against the T-Wolves just felt different, didn’t it? It was like the team kicked it up a gear. Even long-time chroniclers of the team were calling it “the best win of the season.”
‘The Big Mo’
It’s gonna take some time to see if this version of the Trail Blazers sticks. Portland plays the Mavericks Friday in Dallas (5:30 p.m. tip-off). Then they play back-to-back games Tuesday in Los Angeles against the Clippers (7:30 p.m. tip) and Wednesday at home against the Chicago Bulls (7:00 p.m. tip).
If the Trail Blazers can smoke Dallas (as they should), LAC (as they most certainly can) and Chicago (as they should), that would represent the team’s first four-game winning streak of the season. And that’ll go a long way toward assessing whether or not “The Big Mo” is here to stay. (That’s momentum, by the way. Not Maurice Harkless — who has no momentum, sadly.)
Positive Vibes
Despite the subhead, it’s actually gonna take a lot more than just “positive vibes” for the Trail Blazers to make a strong, sustained push up the ladder of the Western Conference. (Portland is currently seventh in the conference with a 26-22 record).
It’s gonna take All-Star caliber performances from Lillard (naturally) and CJ McCollum (an All-Star in the making).
Al-Farouq Aminu and Ed Davis will have to perform each night as they did against Minnesota. Aminu had 15 points and seven rebounds, and he played stellar defense on Karl-Anthony Towns. And Davis was a beast, with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Plus, he passed the ball in traffic to the open man on several drives near the basket.
Furthermore, it’s gonna take stellar, mistake-free performances from Pat Connaughton, Zach Collins and, of course, Jusuf Nurkic.
It should be noted here that Collins and Nurkic played about the same amount of minutes against the Timberwolves. And that Collins actually outscored and out-rebounded Nurkic.
Team Effort
In other words, it’s gonna take a full-team effort. Every night. Every possession. That’s the only way to win in the NBA. And it’s the only way the Trail Blazers can hang with the big ballers in the Western Conference.
The Trail Blazers proved on Wednesday that they’re capable of putting together a complete game.
Next: Making the case for Shabazz Napier as Most Improved Player
And yet, despite those positive vibes and Rip City’s anticipatory tizzy, it remains to be seen whether that beautiful win against Minnesota is a sign of things to come, or just another frustrating flash in the pan.
But I feel good about things. I think Wednesday was a turning point. How about you?