You want Blazer Basketball? I’ll give you Blazer Basketball!!!
I saw this man wearing a red t-shirt emblazened with the words “BEAT LA”. This shirt is an item of absurdity. It is either getting too far ahead of oneself, or not going far enough. Round One of the playoffs is Against Houston. Round two is against LA. The Finals (Round 4) would probably be against Cleveland. The shirt ought to either read “Beat Houston” or “Beat Cleveland.”
If you were watching the NBA on Monday from the vantage point of a Portland Trailblazers fan, you had your eye on four games matching the teams in the standing about where your team sat against three bad teams and one okay team. So Houston throttled the okay team of New Orleans. The Portland Trailblazers’ victory over Oklahoma City demonstrated the underlying truth of the Onion parody — score at half-time: 62 to 31. I think that columnist who wrote that Oklahoma City’s future was brighter than the Blazers gave the Blazers a chip on their shoulders toward a team that, whatever the future may herald, is at the moment not good.
Sacramento, the team with the worst record in the league, teased it out before Denver finally pulled ahead to nab the division title. It was wishful thinking to hope that Sacramento could pull that one out. Meanwhile, a moment of exasperation came with the Warriors versus the Spurs: with one second left in the game, the Spurs hit the game winning three point. Which would be alright, except that the shot clock had expired. The consolation for the irritated Blazers fan, eyeing the home court magic number: the Spurs would have probably won in overtime anyway.
With those games settled, Wednesday came around and there was three games Blazer fan had reason to watch. The opimum outcome would have been that the Spurs lost to the Hornets and the Rockets lost to the Mavericks, ensuring that a Blazers victory get the team a three-seed against the Hornets. The worst outcome was the Rockets losing and the Spurs winning — ensuing a match-up with the Rockets, who present match-up problems for the Blazers. Which is what happened. And how did that scenario happen?
Hornets up by 3. And Damned if James Posey for the Hornets didn’t miss his 2 free throws. Make either, and the game is over — Blazers to play Portland to move up the seedings to play the Hornets and avoid Houston. Posey missed both. Spurs threw in 3 pointer, won in overtime. So, off of one missed free throw (either one), Hornets cost the Blazers a play off seeding — and pushed the road into LA up a round. Damned Hornets. Then again, that was a demonstration of why they would have wanted to play the Hornets in the playoffs in the first place. Also, perhaps it might have worked out well for the Hornets — if they thought they had a better shot against Denver than the Blazers. (Probably a 50 – 50 proposition: the Blazers probably have both more up-side and more down-side on this one.)
But, hey. Compare them to the 1977 Championship team, and they may have the perfect route to improve as the playoffs continue. Emerge from the series against Houston, and you’ll come out a better team for it. Then comes the Lakers. Reading between the lines, the Blazers finally have the Lakers’ attention. You can’t really call it a “rivalry” as of yet, sure — the Blazers fans chant “BEAT LA!” (parochial: small city versus big city. See shirt at the top of this blog entry. Suppose the Blazers do make it to the Finals against Cleveland, or even merely beat the Lakers. Will there be a “Beat Denver”, “Beat San Antonio”, or “Beat Cleveland” or “Beat Boston”?), and they always defeat the Lakers win they play in Portland. But that’s been the equivalent of a buzzing mosquito. It’s finally mattering enough for the Lakers to pay any attention. Hence, Phil Jackson doesn’t bother coming to Portland that last game, cites a re-play on the Jumbo Tron of the hard foul from the last game with “Portland is like that”, and explains the losing streak in Portland as coming because it’s a dreary place with a lot of sad people in the stands. And hence a quick search through the LA Times shows up — well, look it up yourself… it’s kind of interesting.
If I had to guess, the Blazers win the series against the Rockets. The home court is everything here. And the Lakers defeat the Blazers in six games. Do the math, and you’ll find that means the Lakers do indeed win in Portland, finally. I suppose this is slightly disappointing in the realm of “optics”, both for ending a good streak of home victories and because the post-season record between Portland and LA is not too good: Clyde Drexler dribbles away a victory in the early 1990s, and that seventh game fourth quarter meltdown of 2000. Then again, these things have to switch over –unexpectedly — at some point, and Mr. “ZenMaster” seems to be concentrating his “Zen” tricks on the Blazers. In a dozen years, it is hoped that the Blazers will be roughly where the Spurs are right now: probably ending their spell as an elite team, but standing there with four championships in the past decade.
Bear in mind, I am a complete Homer and will cease to have any interest in the NBA playoffs once the Blazers fall out of the playoffs, as the nation awaits that inevitable Lebron Cleveland versus Kobe LA match-up. If that sounds both parochial and absurd, I’ll state for the record: Spectator sports is ridiculous anyways.