If the Portland Trail Blazers didn’t lose a heart-shattering overtime game to the Oklahoma City Thunder last night—they did, the score was 107-106 in favor of the visiting team—it still would have been a really bad day for the franchise. In a period of a few hours leading up to Thursday’s game—the very same game that was dedicated to the death of Blazers icon Maurice Lucas—Portland lost rookie Elliot Williams for the season with a dislocated right patella (the injury du jour for the Blazers), then bid farewell to Fabricio Oberto, who hung up his jersey for good citing a heart condition. A little more salt was tossed in the Blazers’ wound when Rudy Fernandez bowed out of last night’s game when his reoccurring back problem flared up once again.
Even the old gypsy woman that has cursed the Blazers probably feels sorry for them right about now.
As for the game, it was thrilling. Especially the part where Portland overcame an early disadvantage to build up a 13 point lead in the third quarter. Not so thrilling was the part where the Blazers became overly cautious, then ice cold, in the final minutes. This allowed for the Thunder to muscle their way back into the game, and eventually control the pace down the final stretch. The Blazers’ stand-by offensive procedure for games like this—give Brandon Roy the ball and stay the hell out of his way—failed (twice) in the waning seconds and game went to overtime. It was there that things went wrong. And slowly.
After 4:19 of the extra period the Thunder had scored all of three points, the Blazers, well, they had zero. There were forced shots, airballs, and more than a few possessions butchered by bad passing. As the clock expired, Armon Johnson (who, once again, looked great for a late round rookie in only his sixth game) was unable to hit the mythical four point “unicorn shot”—despite what TNT’s Kevin Harlan thinks—as the final buzzer sounded.
With six players scoring in double figures the boxscore sure was impressive, but the results might be devastating for the Blazers if the team doesn’t bounce back in a big way against the lowly Toronto Raptors (That should not be a problem, their best player is named Andrea. I am serious.) on Saturday. If that game turns out anything like this—it probably won’t—there might be a problem. Until then, let’s just hope the Blazers roster doesn’t get any more depleted between now and then.
“Thrilling” is not the word for it! I was on the edge of my seat, freaking-the-fuck-out for nearly 3 quarters! Best game I’ve ever seen live.
Rest in Peace, Maurice!
I really wanted the Blazers to win this game so bad. I think I took this loss that hardest out of any of their games since the past 4 or 5 years of watching them. I’m just getting sick of the Thunder hype from the national press. Simmons has them playing in the finals, and blogger that wants to look like they really follow the NBA over praise Durant and the Thunder. I know it is only one game out of 82 but I just wanted the Blazers to prove these guys wrong. But as with all teams that I follow, I end up getting disappointed.
But I was listening to one podcast where the host was talking to a writer for NBA.com and wanted to know what stories are popular and what stories are people not caring about. One subject that came up was the Thunder and that writer said readers and getting tired of them. So at least I am not alone on that.
I have no problem with Durant (even though he is a little bit of a stat stuffer like shooting 2’s when his team down and has no chance of winning just so you can keep your ppg up) and the Thunder team seems like a nice group of guys (at least when you compare them to the Celtic’s or Laker’s roster of rapers and cancer mocking assholes). I’m just tired of all the praise. At least this year they have targets on their backs and teams will play up for them.