After last night's 117-112 comeback win over the Pistons, the Blazers find themselves tied in the Loss column with the Houston Rockets, only 1/2 game out of 3rd place. Currently at #4, they would play OKC in the first round and at #3 they would play the Clippers. Houston is one of the few teams the Blazers currently have the tie-breaker with so they just have to finish even with them to get the #3 spot. How likely is it that they will catch the Rockets? #5-#8 is separated by a minuscule 1 game so that has plenty of time to change. What is almost as interesting is that without Curry, the Warriors dropped to #2 so the winner of 3/6 would now play the Warriors and the winner of 4/5 would get the Nuggets. That is getting ahead of myself but I'd still rather play the Nuggets than a healthy Warriors squad in the 2nd round. ROCKETS..............BLAZERS @Pelicans....................BROOKLYN @Bucks........................@Bulls DENVER......................@Hawks SACRAMENTO............@Pistons @Sacramento...............@T-Wolves @Clippers.....................MEMPHIS NEW YORK..................@Nuggets PHOENIX.....................DENVER @Thunder................... @lakers[/USER] .......................................SACRAMENTO Houston looks to have 3-4 losses left on their schedule. The Blazers have to match them in losses with one more game left than the Rockets. It looks like Portland should be favored in all but 2-3 games that they have remaining. The Blazers have a real shot at #3 and I think the Warriors finish at #1. They have a much easier schedule than Denver to finish the season and host them in Oakland once more before the end of the year. Then it comes down to who the Blazers get in the 1st round. We aren't looking for the improvement of just a win....they need to win a 1st round series. Who gives them the best opportunity to do just that?
I think the Blazers finish 4. Seems to me theyve got a rougher schedule. 2 games vs Denver, Pistons on the Road. Still a moderate in length Road Trip. The Rockets play the Bucks, and will probably be favored in the rest of those games. Also the Blazers dont play Back to Back home games for the rest of the season, while the Rockets do it twice. I think finish 4 and play Utah. Most importantly in my opinion at least is the Blazers need to stay healthy, get CJ back in the mix and dont drop to 5.
Not so sure as Rockets have Bucks, Clippers, Thunder and Kings on the road with a game at home against Denver. All of those games will be tough.
Clippers win today to move into the #5 slot. Probably the best matchup for the Blazers of the 4 listed in the poll, but I have to admit that their bench scares me.....
Oh god no. No more Neil and stotts pls kthx. Though that said If we win a championship this year they can come back for one more year. Then fire them because we all know it's because of Damian we won it.
I just don’t see it as rosey for the Blazers as you. Not saying you can’t be right. They don’t have CJ and will struggle on road games without him. They never get scoring from the bench on the road and usually lose the free throw battle. Tough to win that way without arguably your best shot creator.
We need to win both games against Denver to even get a shot at 3rd. If we pull the Thunder in the first round I doubt we win.
Portland was losing a lot of road games WITH CJ....and their Playoff record the last couple of years wasn't exactly stellar with him either.
Sounds like you think they are winning now in spite of them well they kinda just blasted through the toughest road trip they had all year. Their road record seems to be fine.
I'd rather the Blazers play the Warriors than OKC. I'd like to see the Blazers finish with 52 wins. So they'd have to go 7-3? Tough but possible.
I don't really care about 3rd or 4th as long as we have HCA. GS might as easily drop to 2 to so planning to avoid them in the second round is just a futile exercise right now. And, let's actually get out of the first round before talking about all that stuff. TBH, I hate all our first round matchups. Clippers are least objectionable. The poll results scare the crap out of me though given our proclivity to jinx this shit. Every single national pundit last year said we'd win against NO.
I don't see GSW dropping, as Denver's remaining schedule is brutal (I've been harping on this for a while now). Believe it or not, despite still them having a 4-game lead on us and holding the tie-breaker, if Portland can take care of business and win the games they're supposed to win, they still have a legit shot at the 2. The Nuggets could easily lose 3 of their next 6. If the Blazers are within 2 games of the Nuggs going into their pair of games on April 5th and 7th, the 2 seed is absolutely within reach.
