Through 13 games, the Trail Blazers are 6-7 during the month of January with road games against the Hawks and Bucks looming. The wins: Lakers (x2) Heat Magic Kings Wizards The losses: Hawks Clippers Spurs Grizzlies Suns Celtics Cavaliers I know we've been banged up, bruised, and fatigued but I'm ready for the calendar to turn to February. Not only have we lost our last four road games, but aside from the Wizards victory, none of the wins are against quality opponents. We haven't had a comfortable victory since our 101-79 beatdown of the hapless Knicks back on December 28th. To make matters worse, we have two difficult road games left on the trip. I'm not hitting the panic button (yet), it's just frustrating that this squad seems like they've lost their ability to close out games. Looking back, we really should be 11-2 in the month as I felt like we let games slip away in the final minutes against LAC, Memphis, Phoenix, Boston, and now Cleveland. Maybe getting RoLo back will be our cure-all? Maybe it's a trade? Who knows. Whatever it is, we just need to find it in time. Thankfully, there's still 35+ games remaining.
We aren't playing great basketball but at the moment we are missing a starter and the centerpiece of our D in Rolo and Nico has fallen off a cliff. Thats two starters that are basically not present to go along with the fact that something is up with both Wes and Lillard as both have been off for this whole month and now Lemarcus is injured. Injuries have taken a lot out of us and you can see it by just how fatigued everyone looks. Add that onto the fact we are always getting down double figures at some point because our D just isn't their at the moment and all the energy we have to expend to get back into the game then it should come as no shock that we just don't have it for the end of games at the moment and this has been a month of games lost in the final couple of minutes. We are like the Grizzlies from a couple of years ago that are so banged up we are just salvating for the AS break so some rest can be had and hopefully we get everyone back healthy so we can end the season on some momentum.
I feel like a win is coming on FRI. Dame has looked PISSED lately so I expect him to go extra hard after Kyrie dropped a double nickel on him. Hawks ran our team outta Moda last time so we will all be motivated, and we always seem to play well in ATL. For some reason it always seems like we're slumping when we hit that city, and usually come out with a win to righten the ship. Could be the perfect time for a statement win.
If Lillard doesn't have his head right, going extra hard just means jacking up more bad shots. He needs to focus, meditate, stop forcing things, and get his groove back. As for Batum, I suppose it's easy to overlook but he played a terrific basketball game last night. A super quick all star point guard had the game of his life last night, and scored twice against Batum late. It happens. There is no such thing as locking down a player like that when he's in a zone, and more importantly, no one else on our team could have done better.
