The fan near press row.

Without going into too much detail the Blazers have taken an interest in our forum. I'm not sure if it's from seeing where HCP is spending all of his time instead of doing his job but at least one person in the Blazer organization is reading the forum and liking what they see.

This resulted in someone from the Blazers reaching out to Denny and offering tickets to last night's game as long as whoever got the tickets wrote up what they saw at the game.

Now I'm not sure whose fault it was I went to the game under the assumption that I was to be sitting in press row, have credentials to conduct post game interviews and attend the post game press conference.

After multiple trips to Will Call and press relations, many confused people asking me questions like, "Who are you?" "RipCityTwo, is that a dot com thing?" and "Who are you again?" the Blazers did a great job of scrambling around and came up with a ticket for me at the last minute. Unfortunately this ticket wasn't on press row and didn't include locker room access.

But still, free ticket to a Blazer game is a great thing and I was looking forward to seeing this year's team.

After finding my seat I realized that I wouldn't be able to ask the players any of the incredible and insightful questions that I had came up with in advance but a condition of getting the ticket was reporting on what I saw so I decided to come up with a plan B.

Plan B being that I was hungry and wanted to try out some Fire On The Mountain hot wings.

After finding FOTM I settled on the 5 piece honey BBQ wings. In a another thread here on RipCityTwo there was a discussion about if 5 wings are $9.75 or $8.75. Here is the reason why the price of the wings will be forever emblazoned in my mind.

I order my $8.75 wings and gave the guy behind the counter a ten dollar bill and 3 quarters, $10.75. He gives me back $1.25. I say politely, "I gave you $10.75." he quickly realizes his mistake, takes back the quarter and hands me a $5 to go along with the $1 that is already on the counter. "Again, half laughing I tell him that I gave him $10.75. He quickly takes back the $5.00 and then gives me 3 quarters. At this point I decided to give up and took the $1.75 instead of trying to hold out for that last quarter.

I'm chalking this up to opening night jitters but they seemed to be waiting for each order to be placed before they prepared it so it took 10mins to get my wings and they weren't that busy. While not the most meaty wings I've had they were delicious. I would have liked to have had more than 2 small celery sticks but that is more of a request than a complaint. The honey BBQ was excellent.

The game:

I've read a lot of your takes on what you saw during the game last night. I saw a few things differently so that's what I'll focus on.

Freeland looked vastly improved and his hard work in the off season showed. While he'll never be a star in this league he was doing the things I want to see from a backup big man. On offense he got down low and set picks. On defense he for the most part stayed in front of his man and blocked him out when a shot went up. He brought his lunch pail and did some dirty work. He didn't always win the battle but you have to remember he spent a lot of time matched up against Griffin and by blocking his man out he made it easier for other players to get rebounds.

While TRob and Leonard had some highlight moments I spent most of the time watching them and wondering what the hell they're doing out there. Meyers spends way too much time away from the basket looking for teammates to throw the ball up so he can fly in and slam it down. Also when the shot goes up instead of establishing position, grabbing the rebound and then going back up he instead is waiting until it bounces off the rim so he can fly in there to try and do a one handed flush though the basket. He's clearly athletic and talented but he is spending far too much looking for that Sports Center highlight play that will bring the crowd to their feet instead of battling down low under the basket.

TRob also seems entirely too focused on highlights instead of hard work. Why he floats out past the 3pt line instead of posting up is confusing. He seems to think of himself as a small forward instead of a power forward. He's athletic and has quick instincts for rebounds but he spends far too much time away from the basket. That spin move that he does needs to stop.

I applauded Stotts when he started Freeland the second half because I thought he earned it. I think a battle for the backup power forward playing time would be a great benefit to TRob. He needs to earn his playing time, do more around the basket and give up his attempts to be a human highlight machine.

For the most part it was a preseason game. You can't read too much into it. The Clippers under new coach Doc Rivers look ready to battle for the Western Conference Championship.

It's hard to get a real feel for what the Blazers are ready to do with so many players not playing last night.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, SlyPokerDog.

 

Tell them I'll do it for the game in Orlando, if they can get tickets for me and my little girl. It'll be her 4th birthday, we're planning on having a daddy-daughter day at Disney and going to her first game that night. I'm sure she'd love to ask Lillard and Aldridge some questions.

 

If the opportunity arises to ask, I will.

 

I liked seeing the combination of Claver as PF and Freeland as C last night and am interested to see more of it this preseason.

 

Maybe I'm too old school but I would make Meyers how learn to battle for position down low before giving him the green light to float away from the paint.

They moved the what?!? Oh man, I had some really interesting times at that shoe shine stand. Larry Miller always had this routine of stopping to get his shoes shined during game nights and more than once I would sit down next to him, get my shoes shined and we'd talk it. It was there he gave me the prototype of the Make It Better foundation pin when I noticed it on his lapel.

 

If I get the opportunity again I plan on making this a regular thing.

 

I think it would be fun if we could work with the Blazers and for select games have a fan on press row regular column. If you could make it up for a game I think you'd be a blast to sit with and watch a game. Also your Texas residency would provide valuable insight on the quality of the BBQ offerings at the Moda Center.