No more excuses, and there's a shortage of rocks to crawl under for media types that all said Portland would miss the play-offs, and even the most optimistic one's that said fighting for an 8th seed. The bias is thicker than fossilized Dino dookie.
That's true. But it's pretty understandable. The franchise has had three major title windows in the past 25 years (Drexler era, Pippen era, Roy/Oden era) and has nothing to show for it. The last one was aborted before it even really started. It's hard for me to buy into the idea that we could have another window dumped in our lap completely out of the blue. Just getting into the second round seems like a minor miracle. I'm struggling to get my hopes up beyond that, even as I admit this team looks ridiculously good right now.
I think it would have to be considered an epic collapse for the Blazers to completely fall out of the playoffs at this point. Even if LMA or Lillard went down, I think this team can still win enough for an 8th seed at this point.
Portland is 5 1/2 games ahead of the 9th and 10th seed in the west right now. Not sure how 5 1/2 games would be an epic collapse with 64 games left.
If after 18 games you have the best record in the harder conference, second best record in the league, and you've beaten the Spurs and Pacers, it's a pretty huge fall to be a lotto team in the same season.
*knock on wood* I could see an injury to one of the L's being devastating enough to cause that collapse, but *knock on wood* all have seemed pretty rugged in the last two years or so.
It's true that Indiana have faced a soft schedule. Apparently they have only beaten two teams with a winning record! [EDIT: My mistake, actually only one.] Of course, playing in the East, it's tough to FIND teams with a winning record. Did you know that Memphis is dead last in the Southwest Division but would be first in the Atlantic? So one entire division is better than the best team in another? How did it get so bad? I've been burned too often to believe in this team until they win the Finals. Until then, it's all a mirage and reality is about to hit us like a ton of bricks.
LMA is playing so well right now, I don't even want to think what would happen if he had a season ending injury.
Things to note: Denver is suddenly good. All it took was Javale McGee going down. Golden State and Minny aren't looking so hot. Suddenly OKC is looking scary. If we beat them, I'll ALMOST start believing.
I disagree. Some of the teams that were looking like patsies at the start of the season are starting to click: Denver especially, but also the Lakers and Dallas. And Memphis seems to have turned it around, even without Gasol. Portland and San Antonio greatly benefited from stability: Denver and Memphis changed coaches, LA lost Howard (and Nash), Houston had to integrate Howard (and keeps getting key players injured), Dallas (as usual) has a ton of new players and OKC were without Westbrook (and had to adapt to losing Martin). I think we could miss the playoffs WITHOUT losing key players.
Why are you even saying the words? Why are you even thinking that? Go make a sacrifice to the basketball gods RIGHT NOW.
I am really enjoying this season so far, but have the same underlying fear given our history. This is the pain of a Blazer fan.
I love the win last night, but I would've felt much better had the Blazers lead for most of the game instead of catching up/getting the lead late in the 3rd and most of the 4th. A W in this fashion does count the same as a W in a blow-out though. I hope the OKC game is a better battle for Portland (and the same result).
I'm actually better with a hard-fought game like last night. No one can deny that the Pacers had a relatively healthy team, the refs weren't a huge factor, and they were playing well. We just came up big in crunch time. If we'd have gone up 19-2 and won by 25, I think you'd see more "Pacers just had a bad night" articles/threads, and it'd be more fuel to the "pooh-poohing the Blazers" fire.
