I think so, there ain't a team playing as well as the Blazers are right now. Just two days ago I was saying that they weren't playing their best ball. But they were doing a good job managing. Two days later, they are playing the best ball of the season. They really can turn it off and on.
Because us fans all need to concentrate on only the next single game. If not our telepathic powers are so strong the Blazer players will lose focus and struggle on the court.
If the lineup was CJ, Wes, Nic, TRob and Freeland for the first 6 minutes. That wouldn't have happened.
On any given night. But in a 7 game series it's a different story. Right now I say we are a "dark horse" due to our lack of playoff experience. We are playing great now but these kind of teams pop up every few years out of nowhere. I say the true contenders are the four teams in the conference finals last year still. hoop fam
Mo was a +13 Free was a +9 CJ was a + until he had to play with Barton Tonight was one of the best showings of our bench (Mo/Free/TRob/CJ) all season. We're just not very good with Barton and Leonard out there.
Portland's bench (minus the 3rd stringers) is still one of the bottom benches in the league. Just because it is improved over last years historically bad bench, does not mean this group is productive. In the majority of stats/advanced stats you look at, Portlands bench ranges from #28-30 in most of them.
So that means we are exactly the same team? That means nothing. The lakers may have the same exact record this year as some team last year. That doesn't make them the same exact team. That's just purely coincidental based on the conditions of the schedule for that year.
Would you say the clippers were legit contenders last year? They were hot as shit and went undefeated in December. Great ball movement and chemistry and blew teams out. Really similar to this team, built by the same GM. hoop fam
Sometimes I forgot how funny you can be (cue Pesci rant). The Blazers shouldn't think about being title contenders, they should be thinking abut Houston. Same with us fans. Don't put the cart before the horse, don't count the chickens before they hatch, etc.
we saw what the end of the bench can do. The bench isn't depending on Barton, Meyers, Robinson, CJ and Wright for major minutes, alone.
Vegas has us at the same odds as the Clippers and Warriors for winning it all. Indiana, Miami, OKC, and SA are the only teams with better odds, but the gap is pretty huge between us and them but less than when the season started.
Never did I think the Clippers were contenders. Griffin just wasn't at the time a great PF. They were highlight stuffers... I knew they were fools gold. Now, part of that is I hated the inundation of them.. however, I could see right past it. Their main ball movement was vertical, while ours is more horizontal. We are different teams.
oh, I meant OKC. Forgot they went down with Westbrook's injury. in any case, we're no different than the Clippers were last year or the Grizzlies were the past 2-3 years. Good basketball, good record...seemingly out of no where with lower key guys. They were on the top of the league at times and made some noise, but I didn't think they were really legit "contenders". IMO, you only earn that with how you do in the playoffs. Basically its these stages of a team. Great regular season team---> Great Playoff Team-->Contenders-->Championship Window open
