I'm not sure what you mean? We are 8-7 on the road while Boston is 8-1 and LA 7-1. Boston already has as many wins on the road as us and LA only needs one win to have the same. By the time they play another 6-7 road games they'll have a much better record on the road than us most likely going by their winning precentage on the road up to this point. The only place we match up well is at home and we have a lot more games to go there to match them.
This is a case where what would have been just another game on the schedule became, because of timing, big. Going into the road trip a lot of people said that 3-2 or even 2-3 would be acceptable. But after getting their butts kicked in Boston, the Blazers badly needed a win to restore their confidence and morale. Losing this game, against a struggling team, after building a 10 point 4th quarter lead, would have been devastating. Things really don't get easier; they face Orlando (the team, not my cat) at home then go BACK on the road against Utah, still tough at home. A loss would have made winning those two games much tougher. Amazing, what a difference one point makes.
I also wanted to point out how perimeter oriented Bosh is. I know you guys give LMA a lot of shit for being out there so much, and soo many of you drool over Bosh, but I think if we got Bosh, he would see the same criticism. LMA's ceiling is INSANELY high, and I thought he outplayed Bosh last night. He is going to be one of the best PFs in the NBA in a couple years. He is getting better and better. I really love watching him play. He has been running the court better, blocking more shots, poking out balls and getting steals, hittin the offensive glass... he has really improved his game, and is focused on bringing something to the team outside of scoring. And his scoring is coming back. I love watchin' LMA play. He has some sick post moves as well. I DO agree that he should go to the post more, and not fade away. He should go at the basket. He looks really good when he does goes at it.
Did anyone catch Webster's foot status? I remember hearing Mike Rice say that Webs took his shoe off after playing and saying it was sore. Do you think he'll be back in the line-up tomororow?
Personally, I think Webs should wait until sometime during our home stand. Get a few more practices under his belt, and take it a little easier on his foot. Rice said he saw a limp, and yeah, that Webs took his shoe off and that it was sore.
I somewhat doubt that LMA will ever be as good as Bosh offensively, but he's already a better perimeter and weakside defender. I wouldn't worry too much about him, most NBA bigs take awhile to fully develop (He does need to get more aggressive on the glass however, that's really an Achilles heel of his game).
The place where Bosh is clearly better than LMA is attacking the rim face-up from the dribble - Bosh is like an athletic SF playing PF and that's why he is such a great player. However - Aldridge is actually a better defender than Bosh and I doubt Bosh would retain his rebounding advantage playing on a good rebounding team like Portland next to the two centers currently #1 and #3 in the league in rebounding rate... (in comparison, JO is #18)
Sheed wasn't a great help defender or three point shooter right out of Carolina. LA skills will come as did Sheeds.
Yeah, I just thought I'd let the storied Celtic franchise know what I thought about there team! Fuck 'em! MB took a couple shots of me, I put them on here every now and then.
http://www.82games.com/timeouts.htm of course, 2005-06 the Blazers were worst after timeouts. Obviously, the team was atrocious so that changes things, but it makes me question these kinds of stats. Maybe the Blazers win a lot of close games because essentially our offense is isolations, whereas other teams might rely on fast breaks to score. I wonder if there's a correlation between winning close games and a low pace factor.
I also think the record is so good in close games because Nate tends to have the team foul the other team, even when the game is pretty much out of reach (I presume as a learning experience at dealing with that type of situation), so the score tends to balloon a bit at the end if we are losing. Although this was mostly last year. I don't remember seeing this often this year (mostly because there's been too much winning!)
