The Blazers are fighting to control their oh-so-competitive
division, and lately they're doing a fine job of it. Their overall record
places them squarely in the mix with the rest of the West's best, but one
thing to note is that they've played more road games than all but three
teams in the West.
One problem in the beginning of the season was
an injury to Advydas Sabonis. Lately Sabonis is doing the job, spending
decent minutes on the court with terrific per-minute production.
A nice surprise has been the play of Damon Stoudamire.
Damon put up huge stats in his early years as a Raptor, but since coming
to Portland he's been unimpressive as a starting NBA point guard. Career-long
backup Greg Anthony has often received key minutes in the 4th quarter over
Damon, due to Greg's superior defense, and tendency to make clutch outside
shots that Damon isn't known to make. People expected Scottie Pippen to
be the first or second best player on this team. Well, Pippen has played
most of the season about as effectively as Michael Jordan currently plays
(yeah, Mike's retired), although he is contributing a bit more lately.
Rasheed Wallace is easily The Man, and coming in second, to everyone's
delight (and surprise), is Stoudamire.
Portland has been an inconsistent team so far.
They're playing as if they're the champs and don't really need to care
about the regular season. Maybe they're confident that turning it up in
the playoffs will be easy. Well, past champions have almost all shown their
stuff in the regular season, not looked "very good" and then suddenly become
great.
Or, is it just that with the exception of a few,
most of these players are on their way down and just can't give a full
effort night in and night out?
Currently the Blazers have no injuries. Very few
teams are in that situation.
Look for Damon to continue doing what he's doing,
Steve Smith to try to regain his past form as a big shooting guard who
consistently creates mismatches with his size and skill, Scottie Pippen
to at least sometimes pretend he's the Pippen of 1995, Rasheed to keep
dominating, Sabonis to play about half the game yet put up 13 or 14 points
with 8 rebounds, and for both the starters and the bench understand their
individual roles as they're inserted. Dale Davis needs to do what he did
his entire career in Indiana - bang, rebound, defend, and set nasty screens.
Shawn Kemp needs to forget about his past as a primary offensive weapon
and just try to imitate Dale Davis.
This squad is loaded with great, healthy players.
Several aren't what they used to be, but they've got what it takes to win
the championship this year.
The true 2001 championship series is the Western
Conference Finals.
InsideHoops
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