Against the top pool of teams- Lakers, Cavs, Celtics, Magic, Suns, Mavericks, Spurs, Hawks, Nuggets and Rockets- no one has more victories than the Blazers. The Cavs, Mavs, & Blazers are tied with 8. Saw it mentioned here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking?season=2010&week=11
That's pretty amazing...a lot of that success was during the beginning of the season when we were healthy though.
It's too bad we couldn't take care of the crappy teams or win at home like we did last season or else our record would be tremendous. Last year, we took care of the bad teams but struggled against the elite teams on the road.
Not really. Most of the wins against >.500 teams are with Oden and everyone else out. Who did we beat before the injuries? San Antonio and Houston...that's it.
Wrong. 2 of the 8 came at full strength (Houston & San Antonio in the 1st week of the season) I'm calling full strength everybody except Batum healthy. Wins 3-8 all came VERY shorthanded, and they are by far our best wins of the season. 3rd vs Houston on 12/5 (Oden played 4 minutes before . . . you know, no Rudy, no Travis) 4th vs Phoenix on 12/17 (No Oden, Rudy, Travis) 5th at Dallas on 12/22 (Joel played 9 minutes before . . . No Oden, Rudy, Travis) 6th at San Antonio on 12/23 (No Oden, Rudy, Travis, Joel, & NO BRANDON) 7th vs Denver on 12/25 (No Oden, Rudy, Travis, Joel) 8th vs Lakers 1/8 (No Oden, Rudy, Travis, Joel, & Blake) What is remarkable is that almost ALL of the marquee wins have come shorthanded. Weren't we like 1-11 last season at one point against the top 8 seeds in the West? Somethings are just impossible to explain.
Being 6-9 (iirc) against the east is someone's fault. As I said before, there aren't must-wins, but giving up "gimmes" like at home vs. PHI takes a bit of the luster off of wins against LAL, for instance. If you thought we'd be 1-1 in those two meetings, well, there we are. But if you're going to beat a good team (or one that you shouldn't, which may not be the same thing) you don't want to choke against the scrubs of the league. We're middle-of-the-pack right now. If we have a great record against really good teams, that means that we have a crappy record against crappy teams.
