John Hollinger isn't favoring us anymore... Historically I can see how this makes sense, http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playo...?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090423 Mainly because of a category which we dominated oh-so-well this season... point differential.
I'd give Houston a better-than-even chance at winning the series, too, unfortunately. But Portland certainly still has a decent chance. They'll just have to finally find a way to win against good teams on the road. Channel whatever they had when they played in Orlando.
I'm hoping that the Blazers can assume the role of underdog now, and play loose, stealing a game in Houston. If we can manage to do that, this series is going to be a WAR.
1. We've lost home court and needed huge games from Aldridge and Roy to win at home. They're a veteran team and we're a young team. It's not shocking that we're the underdog because that's how I and so many other Blazer fans I know feel. Win one of these next two and I think we'll win, but we don't win on the road versus good teams often. 2. Point differential is not a good statistic with such a small sample size. We were a few Aaron Brooks' ridiculous shots away from winning by 10+, which would definitely change the numbers (although we'd still be down). Likewise, if we play Roy down the stretch of game 1, even in a loss, our numbers look better.
He wasn't using exact point differential, though. He divided the teams into road teams who split the first two and had a positive point differential and road teams who split the first two and had a negative point differential. Even if Roy plays down the stretch and Aaron Brooks doesn't hit those bombs, Houston would still have had a positive point differential through the first two games.
