“They can’t keep this up,” they said. “They have played a soft schedule,” they said. “Wait until they play good teams,” they said.
Well, here we are nearly 20 games into the season and the Portland Trail Blazers are solely in first place of the Western Conference at 16-3. The 2nd place San Antonio Spurs already lost to Portland. The 1st place team in the East, the Indiana Pacers, they lost to Portland on Monday. The West’s 3rd place Oklahoma City Thunder … They just got beat by Portland last night 111-104.
Portland has also beaten the Chicago “Bull”. That is the “Bulls” with Derrick Rose, who dropped 20 points before exited that game with an injury. He was still in the game when Portland came back to make it close I might add.
They also beat the Golden State Warriors on the road the very next night. Even after a skirmish that left them without hot shooting Wesley Matthews and backup guard Mo Williams.
So, does that make Portland the best team in the NBA right now? They sure are playing like it and they have the belt to prove it.
The NBA Championship Belt is something that I came across through Twitter earlier this year. I can’t remember who it was that tweeted about it. I tried looking for the tweet to give that person some credit here – instead, I had to Google it to find it.
Anyways, the Blazers are now the holder of the championship belt. For most of the season, it was the Spurs of all teams to hold the belt. It didn’t feel right seeing as how Portland had beaten them in the home opener. Portland needed their shot at holding such an awesome, made up award. With the way they’re playing this year I just hoped it would come sooner, rather than later.
The Thunder rolled into town holding the belt high on their shoulders. They just won their eighth straight game after scraping by with a narrow victory over the Sacramento Kings the night before. The Thunder were on a bit of a hot streak. But as we all know, streaks have to come to end at some point.
Aldridge went off on the Thunder, putting up 38 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. Even with his stellar performance, the Thunder were still in striking distance late in the game. That is until Kevin Durant missed a crucial wide open 3-pointer.
It was a Nicolas Batum three shortly after that that basically sealed the deal, putting Portland up 108-104 with under 30 seconds remaining. Blazers held on for the 111-104 victory.
The Blazers keep finding ways to win ball games, especially with the lead heading into the 4th quarter where they are now 13-0 under the circumstance. The third quarter has been their quarter this season. You can thank Terry Stotts for that.
Stotts has done a phenomenal job of making the correct adjustments for the second half. Stotts was named the Western Conference Coach of the Month for the month of November. With the way this month has started out, he could be well on his way to his second in a row.
Portland is playing some of the best basketball I’ve seen from a Blazers team in quite some time. This is a playoff team without question. Whether they can sustain a top seed in the standings and host a playoff series is yet to be determined. It’s a long season. But I will say this, they are doing a hell of a job so far.
Schedule for the next week:
VS Utah Jazz Friday, December 6, 2013
VS Dallas Mavericks Saturday, December 7, 2013
@ Utah Jazz Monday, December 9, 2013
VS Houston Rockets next Thursday, December 12, 2013.
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