God damn national media

Damnit, Maris. I was ready to let this go. Houston was a horrible match up for us last year. Phoenix is a better match up for us this year. Very, very simple.

 

Hardly.

They were invented by Faux news, and did not even exist before they were being "reported" about.

 

Getting into it with MARIS is like arguing with a Sergio bobblehead.

 

The greatest bobblehead EVER CREATED!

 

Ok whatever you think but there were "Teabaggers" where I live way before they were ever reported on any news outlet. You can hate on Foxnews all you want. Just live in you world where Sergio is a star player. I'm really really sorry for changing the topic. Go Blazers!

 

Jesus, people, who wants to argue politics on a day after a BLAZER PLAYOFF WIN????????

 

I agree and it was my fault. Sorry

 

The thing that strikes me about the media coverage is that they seemed to have totally missed Portland's obvious defensive advantage over the Suns. They've been so consumed with the Suns' offensive prowess and the Blazers' offensive loss when Roy went out that they totally overlooked the fact that the Blazers are a very good defensive team with a history of giving the Suns' offense fits. On the flip side, the Blazers' advantage of having two guards who can get to the rim and finish against the poor defensive players the Suns throw up against them was also totally overlooked. I'm guessing that some of the media commentators will give this series a closer look now that the Blazers' exposed the Suns' weaknesses.

 

Not that I care what they say, but I'd like to jump in here. All of what you say is the obvious, and the easy, which I think is Professional fans point.

But...
Portland was 24-17 on the road, 2nd best in the west.
Portland was 2-1 against Phoenix, including 1-0 when we didn't have Roy.
Portland was 8-9 without Roy this season, but they were 7-5 without Roy against playoff teams.
Portland finished the season going 16-5.
And typically defense wins in the post season and looking at the numbers it's hard to argue that Portland isn't better defensively.

I personally just didn't understand why the majority were calling the Suns in 4 or 5 games.

At any rate, the series is young, and it's only one game, so there's no need to get ahead of ourselves. The pundits could still end up being right if the Blazers don't bring it every game.

 

Phoenix was an ideal first round matchup. If we get to the second round, I like our chances against a team like Dallas, but it will be significantly more difficult without Roy.

 

I enjoy watching the nation pundits have to back track and eat their words. It's comedy.

 

I think I meant more overall. Certainly I'm more enthused about the Blazers starting 5, but once you factor in the 6-8th men coming in off the bench the play of the Suns' reserves certainly seemed to indicate an advantage, especially with the way Bayless struggled in the second half of the season, Howard has looked tired lately and Martell's up and down psyche.

I'm not saying I think the Phoenix team is way more talented than ours, I just think it's easy to look at what they have as a third party observer and be higher on them than us.

 

It just shows that the league is all about matchups. Denver or Utah (even banged up) would likely wipe the floor with us. However, Phoenix owned both of them. However, we seem to do well against Phoenix. The law of transitivity doesn't apply when it comes to basketball playoffs.

 

Shoot, once the post season begins I always laugh at how the media can be so strongly for the team that won the most recent game. If Phoenix wins game #2, then we'll hear how they have the Blazers solved and their ship is back on course.

 

Fact.

 

I get where you are coming from PF.

I'm a huge Blazer fan that saw Phx in 5 or 6. More so, I thought Ptd would be competitive at home but didn't have much of a chance in Phx and maybe get blown out in game one.

For me it wasn't so much match ups as much as styles. Phx, the best shooting team in the league v. Ptd score quick or grind it out minimizing turn overs and taking quality shots. Ptd doing that without thier grind it out player and star of the team.

Also, have you been watching Amare since the all star break. I agree he draws a tough match up with Camby, but Amare is going to be heard from before this series is over. I just hope Camby can nuetralize him for 3 more games.

Not making the argument that the media isn't lazy, only that I don't think thay got it so wrong this time. Love the fact that I am wrong and will be screaming at the top of my lungs just to get past the first round. But I can see why "experts" thought the suns would run away with it.

 

Hm. Well. I wouldn't bet, even now, that Portland will win the series. But to say they didn't have a chance to be competitive is asinine. Lunacy. Lazy.

 

Repped!

 

The one bad thing about being a blazer fan, although its not really a bad thing, is that the media isn't as keyed in on us as a lot of other teams. We are one of the smallest market team in the West playoffs and one of the smaller ones in the entire playoffs. OKC is smaller then us but they have a superstar in Durant so they will get a ton of coverage. Inless we are upsetting a team or doing something crazy we dont' come up in the media were as if Kobe yawns it'll be on sportscenter.
BTW Kenny from TNT just said "Portland will win the PHX series"

 

It really was!