Some reasons for our recent slump and other observations. Strenth of Schedule in Last 10 games: Blazers: .520 Jazz: .513 Suns: .549 No other team in the playoff chase in the West or any of the elite East teams have had a strenth of schedule over .500 the Hawks came close at .498 SOS. Of these 3 teams who we are battling for Playoff position the Blazers have the best record over their last 10 games at 6-4, compared to 5-5 by both Utah and Pheonix. For the year the Blazers also have a 2nd hardest SOS of any playoff contender in the west only topped by the Suns. Just to calm down some of those worried about the Blazers standing among our Western Peers.
And by the same token the Blazers have won a couple of games (TOR, HOU) that took miraculous shots to win, and also relied on SAS and SAC to miss last second shots to garner victories. That Portland is the second youngest team in the league and has a 4-2 record in close games is very encouraging. The fact that they have a .667 percentage in these games, which is better than their 16-10/.615 overall season average is actually incredible.
Can't disagree with that. However, the Blazers played much better in those games than they did during the 3-game losing streak. We were beaten rather soundly in a couple of those games, whereas we were close enough to win the aforementioned games with "miracle shots."
My biggest issue isn't the "close and late" stat, b/c I agree that we've won more than our share. But you can't get me to agree that it's not horrible that the Clips and Kings and Magic (less so) were even in position to make lucky shots to win the game. There aren't a whole lot of teams in the league that we shouldn't be resting LMA and Roy the last 4 minutes of the game.
