strange people! Amare down for maybe the season, TMAC done for the season, Manu out for 3-4 weeks and then he'll have to get back into game shape which we know isn't easy and now KG may be out for some real time. The Lakers and Cavs must be licking their chops!!!!! As for our Blazers, if our team can focus we could be a top three seed when all the smoke settles. Home court would be amazing for a young team. If that's the case, our season has been a success! Side note! Imagine if we had taken Amare? Maybe KP should be sent thank you cards yet again!
But what's the victory? A real victory is achieving your goal against a full strength opponent. Right now, we're Tonya Harding with the rest of the NBA yelling "Whhyyyyy meeeeee?"
The victory is surely getting into the playoffs now and getting the most important thing for this young team. Playoff experience. If we can get HCA, that would be cruical. As we all know we are a completely different team at home. I don't care if we are playing a team with 5 players, as long as we get to the playoffs this year and hopefully make it too the 2nd round.
Injuries happen, no one cried for us when Oden didn't play all last year did they? Didn't see the Celtics saying " YEAH BUT ODEN DIDN'T PLAY SO MAYBE THIS CHAMPIONSHIP IS TAINTED!" Trust me Kobe is probably jumping up and down and realizing he can rest more and still have home court advantage.
I don't think it was either but there were rumors from the Phx side saying they wanted LMA for Amare. I doubt the Blazers would even consider that trade IMO.
I feel sorry I won't get to watch those players play, but I don't really care about the impact to their teams. As was said earlier, no one shed a tear for Portland when Oden went down for the season last year. Besides, watching the Celtics suffer warms my heart.
In this case, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If they're the bulwark between the L*kers and the Larry O'Brien trophy, the injury saddens me.
I heard last night that Manu's injuruy might be much more serious, and chronic, more like Grant Hills ankle surgery a couple of years ago. It makes me really glad Brandon opted out of surgery a while back. They basically have to take your whole ankle apart and put it back together again. Sometimes that seems to not go so good.
We still have to play well and hard to make it. There is no golden ticket. The second you think you can cash it in a bunch of scrubsplaying free can beat you.
Add in that Boozer being out so long has kept Utah from relevance, and the same thing with Arenas.... The league definitely isn't at full strength. But it's what you expect in mid-February. We're just lucky that our two best players (Roy/Aldridge) have been relatively healthy lately. Yeah, Oden and Blake and Webster injuries suck, but you live with that. The key is to have your very best guys lacing up this time of year.
When Bynum went down, I heard some Celts fans happy and gloating, but now KG goes down. Injuries happen, and it's just not a good thing to get happy that others are broken. It will bite you in the ass. We have had injury issues on our team, and I know how much they suck, so I will not wish that on any team. Now, if it does happen, well, thats part of basketball and it is the job of the Blazers (and every franchise) to exploit every weakness possible, and hopefully that results in wins, but that is not the same thing as being gleeful over the hobbling of rivals.
I would agree if it were any other team in the league, but my hatred of the Celtics boarders on the completely irrational. Actually, it lives way on the other side of that boarder.
2/22 Clippers: No Zach (suspension) 2/24 Houston: No T-Mac 2/25 SA: No Ginobili 2/27 Minn: No Jefferson 3/1 SA: No Ginobili 3/4 Indy: No Granger 3/7 Minn: No Jefferson 3/9 Lakers: No Bynum 3/26 PHX: No Amare
Holy crap... that's amazing. Of course, we'll have to hear MB tell us that they're more dangerous without them and blah blah blah. But we need to take advantage of this big time..
In that same time period, we also face 2/20 ATL 3/5 Den So between now and 3/7, seven of the nine teams we face is missing a top 3 player. (By the time we get to them, there could be more.) Denver is playing at home, so we probably lose that one. Still, this team could go on a nice 8-1 win streak here if Oden can come back quickly.
I think it's more us not taking them as serious as we should because a star is out. As you said we need to take advantage.
