MVN - Most Valuable Network

Games #65/#66 - Kinged and Mac-300

Yes, my inconsistent posting is continuing.  Daily life has changed gears around here lately, so recapping games in pairs is probably going to be my M.O. for the foreseeable future.  My goal coming into the season was to write something about every game the Blazers played this year - so, you know, thank god they didn’t go 15-67…

Game #65 Recap - Kings 96, Blazers 85
I was born in Sacramento.  I’m not predisposed to hate the Kings, and in fact my debut in that city has always made me kind of pull for them (providing the Blazers weren’t the opponent and their players not annoying).  But this was a little ridiculous.

The Blazers laid an egg in Sac-town.  It wasn’t a sure win by any means, as Ron-Ron is firmly inside the mind of Brandon Roy and the Kings have a varied cast of scorers and contributors.  But the Blazers could have at least shown up.
Game links:
ESPN Box Score
AP via ESPN
Joe Freeman @ The Oregonian
Dave @ Blazer’s Edge
Mike Barrett’s Blog

Game #66 Recap - Blazers 107, Timberwolves 96
Who knew win number 35 would mean so much for Nate McMillan?  I thought, well, win #33 would obviously be huge because it would surpass last year’s win total. And, if they can get them, wins #41 and #42 would signify the Blazer’s transformation from loser to being a .500 team and then a winning team.  But last night, with win #35 on the season, Mr. Sonic won his 300th game as an NBA head coach.  Congrats Nate, and hopefully you’ll win way more than 300 more here in Portland.

Another big thing about this game?  How about the Blazers FINALLY winning a game easily.  I’m not saying the Wolves didn’t come to play - cause they did.  But the Blazer lead was 16 with 1:30 to play and 11 at the 5:00 mark.  This was not a game the Blazers had to crawl through glass to win.   They’ve had to work so hard to win games lately, this was key.

Also key?  The meshing of the dynamic duo of Roy and Aldridge.  If these guys keep figuring out how to be highly productive at the same time like they have lately, they’ll be that much more prepared to welcome Oden next year.  Great story in The Oregonian today about LaMarcus and his continued improvement with getting his low-post offense going, and how he and Roy have had to learn how to play together this season.  Great perspective on LMA’s game, and for those of you who are ready to downplay his potential because he hasn’t already turned into Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett yet.

Also, I’ll say this too - Randy Foye has filled his box score nicely in the last two games against the Blazers. I really don’t think Foye has a chance of ever making the Blazers regret trading him for Brandon Roy, but if he can do some point-guard-ish things in the NBA and effectively become more than an undersized 2-guard/scorer-type, he’ll have a good career and will be a nice piece for the Wolves to have as they try to build that team up. But the early returns on Kevin Pritchard’s two draft-day deals in 2006 looks pretty good for Portland.

Game links:
ESPN Box Score
AP via ESPN
Jason Quick @ The Oregonian
Dave @ Blazer’s Edge
Mike Barrett’s Blog

In Summation:
I just don’t have time to do a particularly good 3/4 season grade-out right now. Those are the things I was most looking forward to writing but can’t pull off now.  If you’ve read this site over the last few months, then you can probably guess I’m pretty happy with how this season has worked out.

I’m also happy about the solid last road-trip of the season for the Blazers. The loss in Sacramento was ugly, but let’s be clear - the only other winning road trip for the Blazers as a 2-1 trip over New Year’s. We are seeing progress!

Three big games next week - always a good test for this team to face veteran teams like the Suns, and the Clippers back-to-backer is another good test. The Clips aren’t as good as the Blazers, but it’ll be good to see how they handle those games.

Go Blazers!

Next three games:
3/18 vs. Suns
3/21 vs. Clippers
3/22 @ Clippers 

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am and is filed under Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, The Inferno, 2007-2008 Season, Greg Oden, Sacramento Kings, Game Recaps, Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trailblazers, Trail Blazers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.