I'm proud of the way our guys have played since the Utah meltdown, but it's disappointing to be 11-3 since then and NOT move up in the standings. What the hell happened to the Spurs? They couldn't beat plus .500 teams WITH Tony Parker! All of the sudden they are beating everybody with TP on the sidelines. They were supposed to have this brutally tough schedule and slide down by now. It's getting old looking in the standings everyday and seeing the 3 teams right above us with 7-3, 8-2, 7-3 records in their last 10 everyday! I have a feeling we are going to end up in 8th by one or two games and we'll be talking about the late 4th quarter meltdowns vs Memphis, New Orleans, & Utah. Or the 1-5 record in overtimes we have. I don't see a snowballs chance of beating the Lakers. They are getting Bynum back soon, and just are too good. We MIGHT win a game or two in that series, but no way do we get 4. Every other team in this race I believe we could make a 7 game series with. So I ask you - after everything that's happened this season . . . would you be happy to make the playoffs and be one and done? After Oden & Pryz went down, most of this board thought we wouldn't win 40 games. I'm happy to make the playoffs, I'd just rather not lose to the Lakers in the 1st round (for what seems like the 15th time) Then again, maybe it's a good experience for our young guys to play the world champs in the post season? I actually think the Lakers will repeat and do it fairly easily.
Absolutely. With all of the injuries this season, and the strength of the West, it's amazing that we are even talking playoffs in ANY capacity. For all the Nate Bashers on here, he has done an incredible job keeping everything together, especially when Brandon was out. The championship window opens next season, anyway. That was the timeline all along.
hahaha i just posted basically the same thing kaydow. Its fucking amazing the spurs keep winning. all i hear was how brutal their schedule was. we are not moving up...
fuck no. I'm competitive, I am not satisfied with playoff losses. Only exception is if we take out the L*ke show. Then I will be satisfied. I don't believe in Moral Victories.
Would I be happy with a one and done? No, but the team will have met my expectations for what I thought should be the goal after Greg and Joel went down. I'd be a lot happier if they could advance in the playoffs, but anything beyond one and done is just gravy, as far as I'm concerned. Go Blazers
the truth is... we are lucky to be top 8 i mean with all that went down (literally) we are lucky to be over 500.
They have moved up, they just have not passed anyone. If you start 100 feet away from something and now you are 2 feet from something, you have moved up.
We have no control over how other teams are playing. All we can do is win as many of our own games as possible. Where we finish is where we finish. I don't mind playing the Lakers in the 1st round. If we get a couple of breaks we can beat them.
I fully expect them to lose in the first round this year because they will be playing someone better than them without the home court advantage. Never happy about it, but the key is to keep gaining experience and giving us some hope heading into the summer that they will be better next year.
please list the teams you think are better then the Blazers... the only team I see as having even equal talent is LA to the OP, it depends on how they might go out in the first round. If they play well but the other team plays better I'll feel fine about it. If they don't play well or get consistently jobbed by the officials, that would suck. If they suffer more injuries I'll feel like puking. STOMP
LA no question Denver: Melo is unstoppable Dallas: Dirk will get all the calls at home. (Did you see him flail his arms like a little bitch the other night and get LMA's second PF. That was disgusting. As good as bROY is he is does not have super start status and these three do. That makes it tough down the stretch. Plus their teams are pretty good too. Right now these three teams are just plain better.
If we play the Lakers there is absolutely NO WAY the refs will allow Portland to win the series anyways. The NBA wants the Lakers in the finals for ratings--not Portland.
That's a big if...I see us going 1-1 in this back to back personally...but the Blazers have proved me wrong before...
Can't say I'm surprised. We were never as close as the "games back" portion of the standings indicated. We simply had more games played than any other team in the league up until the past 2 weeks. Even in the win column and 4-5 games back in the loss column is not a close race, in my opinion.
We're talking about moving up, not winning the division or conference. The Blazers only have one more loss than the Spurs and 2 more than the Thunder. It's certainly within reach to surpass them before the end of the season. That said, I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference who the Blazers play in the first round. They're all tough and they're all going to have homecourt advantage. I'd prefer the Mavs, but I expect that they'll play the Blazers better in the playoffs than they have in the regular season. I'd love to see the Blazers make it out of the first round, but given the mess this season has been from an injury standpoint, I won't be terribly disappointed as long as they play well and stretch the series out to at least 6 games. Next season is a different story.
Who said anything about before the end of the season? I thought we were talking about from the Utah collapse until now, when little has changed in the standings...
Portland is 3-0 vs Dallas this season... and now they're healthy Melo has played better this season then Portland's top player Roy, but I asked about a team not a player. With Kenyon out (at best severely hampered with a torn ligament in his knee) and starting Johan Petro in his place, bring them on in either case claiming "plain better" is a flat ridiculous statement. With the addition of Camby and Batum things have clearly changed STOMP
Can we overtake the Spurs? In its last 6 games, SA has gone lose, win, lose, win, lose, win. In its last 8 games Portland has gone win 5, lose 1, win 2. Pro-SA: SA has much more capability to improve while we are operating at full capacity already. Pro-Portland: But they haven't had streaks lately, so they won't start now. SA has 43 wins. 3 of SA's remaining 11 games are vs. teams .329 or worse. They will win all. 2 are vs. teams .500 and .528. And 6 are vs. teams .639 or better. Of those toughest 6, 5 are on the road. To finish with 50 wins, they must beat the 2 middle teams (.500 Houston and .528 Memphis) and 2 of the 6 tough ones. I don't think they will. Portland has 44 wins. 4 of our remaining 9 games are vs. teams .375 or worse. We will win all. 5 are vs. teams .620 or better. Of those toughest 5, 3 are on the road. To finish with 50 wins, we only need to beat that .620 team, OKC, both times. I think we will. It will be very close, but I like our chances a tiny bit more than theirs. It may be a tie, but I don't think they'll finish ahead.
only way we pass SA is if they start losing to the good teams like boston today. we also have to win 1 of te next 2 road games vs okc and denver spurs get minny, sac, and nets tomorrow so thats 3 more wins at the least. we get ny, gs, sac, and clips so thats 4 locked wins for us. i guess our season depends on us beating teams like okc, la, denver, dallas.. win 2 out of 4 and we pass sa imo. likely we stay 8th though.
