Trail Blazers should be applauded for entire season's effort that led to playoffs

[tlongII]

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/in...blazers_7.html


The Blazers were not in a great mood despite clinching a third straight playoff spot.


With 5:33 left in their game against Golden State, the Blazers were trailing by 20 points and took a timeout. The stoppage gave much of the sellout crowd at the Rose Garden a chance to start making their way toward the exits.

By the time the game was officially over and the Warriors had sewed up a 108-87 victory, maybe a third of the crowd was still there, and they were starting to file out. That's when PA announcer Mark Mason finally made the announcement.

Because Houston had lost to Sacramento, the Blazers had clinched their third consecutive playoff berth.

And indeed, a cheer went up -- as well it should have.

You have to wonder, though. Why did the Blazers wait so long to have Mason announce the playoff berth? The Houston game ended before halftime. Make the announcement during a stoppage in play and let the crowd cheer. Heck, it might've gotten the Blazers out of their funk.

The playoff berth was the most important thing that happened Tuesday. Yes, the loss was ugly, but it was just one game.

The playoff spot represents the culmination of an entire season's effort, most notably fighting through the myriad of injuries. It's a terrific feat for a team that lost its three-time All-Star and had to totally re-invent itself; a team that was floundering with a .500 record in January; a team that has deficiencies in several areas.

For all the talk of the Blazers winning a first-round series, they remain an underdog team, one scrapping its way down the stretch. There's no way to change to that. There's no way to find a better backup point guard or to add a few bigs to shore up the frontline. This is it for Portland this season.

But what they do have is a chance -- whether it's against the Spurs, Lakers or Mavericks -- it's a chance. That's worth celebrating, no matter when it came.

Other notes, tidbits and links:

• The Blazers play a plain-old bad game, leaving themselves at a loss to explain the defeat that ends an eight-game home winning streak, The Oregonian's Joe Freeman reports.

• The game is marked by three disturbing things -- the poor play of Brandon Roy, the bad shooting of Rudy Fernandez and a neck injury suffered by Marcus Camby, the O's Jason Quick writes, adding that the bad adds up to "perhaps the worst playoff-clinching day in Trail Blazers history."

• Roy shot 2 for 11 from the field and finished with five points, bringing his run of poor games to four. In his last four games, Roy averaged 5.8 points and shot 25.9 percent (7 for 27) from the field.

• Warriors power forward David Lee makes the bold move of asking to guard LaMarcus Aldridge one-on-one in the second half, and it works beautifully, I writes.

• The Warriors took command with scintillating shooting in the third quarter, during which they made 12 of their first 13 shots and shot 4 for 6 on three-pointers, many of them wide-open.

How did they get such good looks? Lee explained: "We were aggressive to start the game driving the basketball, so then that opened up our jump shots in the second half. We're a talented offensive team, especially when we're hitting outside shots."

Lee had 29 points (along with 20 rebounds), Monta Ellis had 30 points and Stephen Curry added 28 as those three combined for the same number of points (87) as the entire Blazers team.

• The playoff berth was clinched thanks to Sacramento, which won at Houston 104-101.

• Portland Trail Blazers, you made made the NBA playoffs. What are you going to do now? We're going to Salt Lake City!



That would, of course, be for the next game, Thursday against the Jazz. In a way, the Lakers did the Blazers a favor by losing to Utah 87-86 Tuesday. Why? Because Utah had lost its previous eight before winning in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Surely the Blazers can take that as a warning not to take Utah lightly.

[Fpoonsie]

lol moral victories.

[DMC]

Next year the Blazers will be a powerhouse. (circa 2007)

[Kai]

Can't wait for the "we made the playoffs" parade

[Killakobe81]

Rip CIty is baaaaack!!!!!!!

[DJ Mbenga]

thibadeu has the coy locked up dont even think about it tlong

[#41 Shoot Em Up]

Please stay in the 6t spot.