portland's seed is less important than who they end up playing. get dallas in the first round and portland should be favored to advance. get denver or utah and the opposite is true. ideally portland would play dallas in the first round and get the winner of phoenix/san antonio in the 2nd.
Biggest key now is winning next Monday's game against OKC, where we can clinch our tie breaker vs. the Thunder. That could essentially eliminate any chances of us facing LA in the first round.
Agreed, but since the Lakers are pretty much the only locked up seed at #1, avoiding #8 would be mighty nice.
I disagree. We play the Lakers as well as any team in the conference. Everyone is celebrating our rise up the standings but a #6 seed probably means the Jazz or the Nuggets. We are 1-7 vs those teams. I'd much rather face the Lakers than either of those two teams.
But why are you so scared of us playing L.A.? L.A. is soft and we're so good against them. Meanwhile, the Jazz and Nuggets have our number. I want either L.A. or Dallas.
I'd rather play LA than Utah also. I was just mentioning that point about how we can completely eliminate any thought of us playing LA if we win that OKC game.
Dallas is the team we want to face, and honestly if there was one game left and losing meant we'd face the Mavs, I would want to lose.
I can't believe fans are thinking about tanking for the playoffs. That was 3 years ago folks wake up we aren't a lottery team anymore.
I can't say it any more concisely than KingSpeed did. The Lakers are tough to us, but the alternatives are tougher.
Shit like that really makes a difference. I remember a few years ago, the rule (for that year only) was that the three division winners got the top 3 seeds. Denver was the NW Division winner but they were an extremely weak team in a weak division. Nonetheless, they got the #3 seed. A very good Dallas team (the team that reached the NBA Finals and with a better record than Denver) was the #4 seed. Memphis and the L.A. Clippers, both of whom also had better records than Denver, were fighting for the 5th spot. It was ridiculously stupid because getting the 5th spot meant that you started the first round on the road in Dallas but getting the 6th spot meant that you started the series at home against the weaker Denver team. And so the Clippers and Grizzlies played each other near the end of the season and both teams tried so hard to lose the game, it was an amazing sight to see. Sadly for them, the Grizzlies won the game and the #5 seed. The Grizzlies ended up getting swept by the stronger Dallas team while the Clippers easily dispatched of the Nuggets in 5 games. So who you play does make a difference. I remember in 94 & 95, the Sonics OWNED the Rockets during the regular seasons. The Rockets won the title in both years but they never had to face the Sonics because the Nuggets & Lakers knocked em out for them.
Meaningless. Roy didn't play. Kobe didn't play. Roy has never lost to the Lakers in Portland. Kobe hasn't won there in years.
I think we can handle the Suns. They're a good team, no doubt but I have a lot more faith in our guys stealing the first game in Phoenix than I do of us stealing the first game in Denver or Utah.
I think the Spurs are the only team that might match up with the Lakers who would get the respect of the officials to pull an upset. Sad but true.
unless i missed something, that was just natebishop who also wouldn't have minded having a bad season this year just so nate could get fired. as it is, i don't think it's going to even be possible for the blazers to tank for playoff position(unless they intentionally wanted the 8 seed to play the lakers). it's too close of a race between every one and even on the final day of games, there is a jazz/suns game at the same time as portland's final game which seems likely to effect the 2-5 seeding and keep the blazers from knowing who they could be matching up against.
