The Portland Trail Blazers are limping, very gingerly, into the playoffs after a season that saw them go from a consensus top-five team due to newfound defensive excellence and the usual offensive wizardry, to a dispirited squad with a beat-up superstar, a defense that morphed into one of the league’s worst after the All-Star break (they climbed back up to 20th in defensive rating post-All Star break as of Sunday, but they looked God-awful against Golden State and Utah), and they’ll be without both their starting shooting guard and the guy they traded for to serve as his backup when the playoffs start.
It was a year where LaMarcus Aldridge went from a top-15 player to perhaps the best power forward in the league this season. He flashed a new three-pointer, his turnaround was as pure as Kevin McHale’s ever was, he took everybody and their brother to school on the block, and he became one of the most devastating one-on-one players in the league today.
One quibble about Aldridge is that the ball stops when he gets it; it either is going up as a shot, or going the other way as a turnover. More passing and movement would be nice, but like I said before, he’s a terrific one-on-one guy. Aldridge regularly drew double-teams, and the scrambles the defense engaged in after he got the pass out were useful enough.
As the days turn, and the winds and rains of spring give way to the sultry waves of summer heat, we’ll take a look at each player’s performance this past season, as well as giving thoughts about what they did in the playoffs, in what I’m sure will be a valiant effort playing shorthanded and hurt.
Free agency for Aldridge, the injured Wesley Matthews, and Robin Lopez, archenemy of mascots everywhere, will beckon, and the writers here and everywhere else in Portland’s blogasphere will spend words and articles fretting about it. We hope you’ll read about it, of course, because the weird thing about worries is that they somehow grow less worrisome when they’re voiced aloud (or written about, in my case). If you’re as big a Blazer fan as I am, let us do all your worrying for you.
The playoff opponent for the Blazers is still up in the air; as of the start of action Sunday, Memphis, San Antonio, and the Los Angeles Clippers were all tied with the same record, while Houston was a half-game back, having played one fewer game than the other three teams. The only things that seem assured are that Portland will start on the road, and that everybody wants to play them.
As for the two games that will finish up the Blazers’ regular season, the first will be on April 13, at the Oklahoma City Thunder. If you live outside the Portland market it can be seen on NBATV, but for us locals, KGW will have it on. It’ll start at 5:00 sharp, and since the guys need rest and the Thunder are desperately trying to claw their way into the playoffs (they’re tied at 43-36 with New Orleans for the eighth spot in the West; the Pelicans own the head-to-head tiebreaker), I expect OKC to get the win.
The final game of the regular season will be in Dallas, against the Mavericks, on CSNNW and starting at 5:00 on Wednesday, April 15. The Mavs are locked into the seventh seed, just like the Blazers are locked into the fourth seed, so expect to see the scrubs play while the starters rest for both teams.
My personal record is two games behind the Blazers’ mark of 51-29, and since the bench bums will be playing a game that really doesn’t matter, I’ll try to equal the Blazers this season by saying Dallas’ bench guys beat Portland’s bench guys.
A review of all 30 NBA teams will come tomorrow, and we’ll do a horribly cliché thing and grade each player’s regular season, the starters on Wednesday and the bench guys on Thursday. On Friday, I’ll give my breakdown on Portland’s playoff series, and tell you how badly they’ll get whi–I mean, what chance they have to win.
It’s been awesome working for Oregon Sports News through this Portland Trail Blazers season. I can’t believe I actually got through all 82 games this year, and the real work starts this week–you saw my schedule.
My editor, and the guy who founded OSN, told me to pretty much get a life. I’ve done so, submitting the weekly previews only and shelving other columns I wanted to do, especially in light of the Blazers’ injuries. As long as Portland remains in the playoffs, that life will have to get put on hold.
I want to thank OSN, and any of our partners, for putting their reputations on the line by allowing me a platform. I want to thank Red Bull, Jack Daniels, New Belgium Brewing (the makers of Fat Tire), and Mike and Ikes and Hot Tamales. No, they’re not sponsors. They’re the fuel that kept me awake/buzzed/not asleep as I wrote all those columns in the dead of night before I got a morning job.
Most of all, thank you to you, the reader. I hope you’ll continue to make me, and everybody else that writes for the love of it, a part of your day.
Go Blazers!
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