Jan 21st vs Cleveland Gametime 7 pm Pacific Time KGW-Yes, its a home game on local tv This is our first match with Cleveland and King James this year, and if you haven't seen this years Cavs in action, you click here you can get a look at NBA TVs preseason look at this years Cleveland team by clicking here. Well, the Blazers aren't the only team without the services of their starting point guard. Cavs Point Guard Delonted West broke his wrist in a fall last week in Chicago. West got hurt when he fell face first to the floor while trying to block rookie Derrick Rose's layup in the first quarter of the Cavaliers' 102-93 overtime loss. West also cut his face and needed stitches, but showing his toughness, he came out for layups at halftime and spent the second half on Cleveland's bench cheering his teammates If you are a Cleveland fan the good news on the injury scene is that oft-injured center Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been cleared to resume on-court basketball activities Ilgauskas is averaging 13.8 points, a team-leading 7.1 rebounds and is shooting 52 percent from the field. Ilgauskas is an important piece in the Cleveland offense, no word yet on whether he will be available for the Porltand game. As for our biggest bigh man, CenterGreg Oden had just one word to describe how he felt after arguably his best game of the season on Monday night,"Hungry," he said, showing off his goofy side Monday night after he scored a career-high 24 points and added 15 rebounds in the Portland Trail Blazers' 102-85 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. Should be interesting to see how aggressive Greg is against Varejao and big Ben Wallace. Lets hope he can followup on Monday nights career highs with some aggressive play against the Cavs. I remember last year when the Cavs came to town we played a pretty good game until LBJ took over in the fourth quarter. He simply took the game over, which of course is what superstars do. The Cavs lost to the Lakers Monday night in LA 105-88 in a game where LBJ was guarded by Kobe, had six turnovers and held to just 23 points while shooting 9-25. The Cavs are having a good season and will no doubt show up in Portland ready to play. We'll need to bring our A game to the Rose Garden to get a victory against this bunch. Projected starters Portland Trailblazers Sergio Rodriguez -PG Brandon Roy-SG Nic Batum-SF LaMarcus Aldridge-PF Greg Oden-Center Projected starters Cleveland Cavaliers Mo Williams-PG Sasha Pavlovic-SG Ben Wallace-PF LeBron James-SF Anderson Varejao-Center If you wish, you may CLICK HERE, for a chance to win a free Portland Trailblazer Jersey, otherwise just ignore.
Hmm, didn't realize Delonte was out for Cleveland. He's been playing really well for them this season, and seems to be someone that could give us a ton of trouble. I wonder if we'll try to guard LeBron like we do with Rose and Wade, and use LaMarcus to double him up top and get the ball out of his hands. It's gonna take a big-time team effort. I'm looking forward to going to this game
I thought Delonte West was their shooting guard, and Mo Williams was their PG? I guess it doesn't make much difference and LeBron is the real PG. Aren't they also without the second-best Lithuanian center ever? {edit - okay, just read a bit more...}
Delonte is their SG. Mo Williams is the PG, but Delonte can run the point like he did in Boston a couple of years ago. He's a sneaky good player (up until this year I'd say he had a better pro career than Jameer Nelson). But they have Pavlovic, who is also very capable, so it doesn't hurt them too much.
Someone totally needs to make a sign with the Old LeBron picture from the Nike ads, plus a picture of Oden saying, "Who's your Daddy?"
They missed Z against the Lakers last night. We have a good chance to win this game, I think. Especially if Oden gives us a double double.
This is a very winnable game. I'm still not that impressed with Cleveland. Washington beat them once, and should have beat them on their home floor. I think we can pull this one off.
