Since they're barely beating below .500 teams at home, we may see them all surprise us on the road. But I'd be glad to just not be swept here.
I like our chances against San Antonio and OKC. Houston is a team that we don't usually play well against, especially in Houston. Dallas always seems to give us fits.
We are going to beat SA and OKC. We are better than Dallas. We have a day off before Houston. Oh, hell, we are going to win all 4. We need to at least go 2-2. I'll be 'satisfied' with that.
And what was your genius prediction for our record this year?!?! $hit I wouldn't be surprised if we went 1-4 or even 3-1.
I'll be talking more about this in-depth later today on our podcast (tune in!), but I think we're going 2-2 winning the middle two games (Dal, Hou)... SA is just straight ballin' and @OKC on 4 of 5 when we barely squeaked out of there on the tails of an awesome 4th where Durant went ice cold.... If Minny was any indication of how we are on 4 of 5... 2-2 is nothing to sneeze at... and I think they'll all be close.
Yeah. South East will have the link up later today - look for it mid-afternoon. It'll be at 5 o'clock.
Running the numbers, we're playing teams that are a combined 61-19 at home, for a .763 winning percentage. It will be a good test.
The Heat are on a 3-game losing streak, which makes me feel much less insecure. The Texas trip is always tough and I'm nervous about it again.
I remember when I first started following the Blazers back in the early '90s, people always made a big deal about the "Texas Triangle". Now that OKC is in the fold, do we have an alliterative geometric name for visiting all four cities? Panhandle Parallelogram? Death-penalty Diamond? Tumbleweed Trapezoid? Redneck Rhombus? Quail-hunter Quadrilateral?
I've been thinking recently that this is an odd stat. We have 20 more wins than losses (29-9, 38 games), but .500 isn't 9-9 (18 games), it's 19-19 (38 games). So really, we're 10 games over "true" .500... </nerd>
This was supposed to be the road trip that dropped us out of the playoff race this year. You can just see it: we were probably supposed to be 20-18, clinging to hope, then BAM! 20-23 after the next five games in seven nights. Goodnight, Paul!
Sucks that OKC is the last game of the trip - that's the only game I really care about, as it could have implications for seeding (and I just really hate OKC). Sure, the others could too, but the Division aspect makes me place more weight on the OKC game. Wouldn't be surprised to beat SAS and HOU. Would be a little surprised to beat DAL and OKC. Wouldn't be terribly surprised if we lost all four. Would be quite surprised to win all four, but not floored since we typically play up (or down) to the competition.
Houston has depth and attacks the basket Harden causes fits getting to the line and if he is off Howard can dominate in the paint or Parsons could light it up from beyond the arc. They are a tough match up. The Spurs are a lot like Portland balanced scoring and not great defensively, Portland usually does well because LA matches up well with an aging Duncan and Thiago Splitter makes it 4 on 5 on offense. If the Spurs can make threes we could be in trouble if not we should be okay. Dallas hurts us because Dirk ruins all our defensive effort he pulls LA far from the basket and they murder us on pick and roll. Making life a lot easier for Ellis to get inside. OKC its all about Durant he can beat us all by himself but if we can slow him down at all without Westbrook the team should struggle to match our offense.
What would really be amazing is that even with a sweep some people STILL wouldnt believe in this team.
