Four games into the opening round of the Western Conference
playoffs, the matchup against the Houston Rockets became everything the
Portland Trail Blazers had hoped it wouldn’t be. But facing
elimination, the team was once again led by another unholy Brandon Roy
scoring binge—in which Portland’s lone superstar battled the flu,
got hooked up to an IV and pumped full of fluid, and then proceeded to
knock back 14 points in the final 12 minutes of the game—and
Portland toppled Houston 88-77, extending their season (at least for a
few more days).
The Rockets are the only team to defeat the Blazers in over a month,
yet Portland will still have to struggle to erase an April filled with
enough horrific imagery to scar this impressionable young team for a
long time to come: Luis Scola gently brushing his filthy locks after
foiling another LaMarcus Aldridge jumpshot. A face full of sand to the
scrawny weaklings in Portland uniforms, courtesy of Ron Artest (who,
with a beefcake muscular flex, channeled his inner Charles Atlas for
the national television audience). Greg Oden, stumbling into the knee
of Dikembe Mutombo, unceremoniously extinguishing the career of the
league’s goodwill ambassador. And, of course, Yao Ming, resembling a
nightmarish, laboratory-created super athlete—the Serpentor of
the modern-day People’s Republic of China, but with a jumpshot. When
the Rockets topped the Blazers, it was a victory not merely on the
scoreboard, but an emotionally jarring experience—a “Using this
doll, please show the courtroom where they hurt you” moment—that
Portland won’t soon escape.
Now, the Blazers will don their finest bolo ties and head back to
Texas, down in the series 3-2, to play a Rockets team that they have
yet to defeat on their home court. The Blazers’ two previous playoff
losses in Houston weren’t necessarily the fault of inept, last-second
bed-shitting courtesy of Steve Blake (Game Three) and Travis Outlaw
(Game Four), nor were they due to a noticeable foul disparity (after
four games, Houston had seen 27 more free-throw attempts than
Portland). It was just that the Rockets played the role of the tougher
team.
That role was reversed on Tuesday, when LaMarcus Aldridge’s jumpshot
made its glorious return, previously absent due to a case of
brickatosis—a pandemic that seems to have infected every
Blazers player not named “Brandon Roy” or “Rudy Fernandez.” It still
might not be enough. When down three games to one, Portland was on the
losing end of simple mathematics: teams who faced a similar playoff
deficit have only rallied to win their series 4.4 percent of the time.
But now, down a single game—yet still on the cusp of
elimination—Portland at least has a fighting chance this Thursday
in Houston. If they somehow find a way to win there, it’s back to
Portland this Saturday night.
As Coach Nate McMillan explained, following Game Five, “They didn’t
want the season to end.” Neither do we.