Holy crap Brandon Roy has a thick neck. Also, great work dude.

i’m looking forward to this game like a trip to the dentist. at least tonite, i have that mindset going in….which is better than getting tricked last night.

Good job on the preview, Tim. I don’t know if it’s me, or I’m imagining things, but Mason looks a bit quicker. I’ve seen him get all the way to the rim on a couple of occasions and he’s sticking to his man much better than he did last year. Why is he not starting??

I have to point out that I had the nerve to reach out to Cubits only because he asked for anyone who had a picture of themselves in a George Hill jersey to send it to him in exchange for tickets. I’m no stalker.

(yet)

I hope you’re right Tim. I hope you’re right.

I’m sure the Blazers game will be tough. But I enjoyed this small Blazer related paragraph from a J A Adande piece a couple of days ago:

Their No. 1 overall pick from the 2007 draft has 19 personal fouls and 16 field goal attempts. Their offseason free-agent acquisition is shooting 34 percent. They are 2-3, with two home losses.

Very nice Tim! I also got the simulation up too if anyone wants to check it out.

I’m surprised Blazer’s Edge hasn’t invaded already

Spurs by 9. It’s close at half, but we dominate the third. Hill cruises us in the 4th to a 9 point win.

I’m a Spurs fan and all but Roy over Manu? Manu looks like a shell of his former self and not even close to game speed. Roy should be all over that matchup.

RJ is considerably better than Webster in my opinion…at least on offense

and those stats are from RJ’s lackluster start to the season in all but 1 game

I’m actually thinking that last night was like the warmup and with everyone now loose and limber, we’ll see a better performance tonight. That does not, of course, account for how cornered the Blazers likely feel. And you know they’re confident after winning the season series last year.

FYI… Our home and away records are wrong… should be 2-0 and 0-2 I believe.

Funnel Cake!

That is all.

Couple of things. I think you give the Blazers more credit than they deserve. They’ve looked BEYOND ugly out there. If they suddenly click, you can’t beat them, but I strongly suspect that clickage is 20 more games off (and it better happen).

Roy has been looking ugly as well. He’s put up points in games but his “flow” isn’t there and the team looks disjointed going through him. Keep him moderately disrupted and you should be fine. Allow him and the blazer team to suddenly find themselves from last year, and you’ll have done the Blazers a huge favor. The spurs tend to be great on defense, so I really don’t think this will be an issue.

Aldridge is more of a beast than I think you give him credit for, but he’s also off to his usual slow start. For whatever reason he doesn’t seem to explode until after the all star break. I’m hoping he finds that sooner. Still, my memory is that he does an excellent job against Timmy, but my memory is flawed and I’m at work so not looking it up.

With Greg in the line up, the blazers look decent, without… things seemed to fall apart. he makes up for the sloppy defense of others, and there’s plenty of that from the blazers. He had no foul issues during preseason, but the regular refs still seem to enjoy the whistle. He’s not making the same dumb fouls that leave blazer fans screaming at their screens, but he’s still making a few too many. If he’s not in foul trouble… a strong probability the Spurs lose.

Blake will likely start. MIller comes off the bench. If you’re in shock, so are many other blazer fans. A loss tonight may change that, or Nate may change his mind tonight on a whim. If he flip flops, expect the blazers to be at a loss and a win for the spurs. His flip flops have yet to be good ideas, and doing it right before tip off has always been painful.

Webster is still raw. he was out a year and this is a new team to him. He’s athletic, and hustles but he’s also out of position a lot. for whatever reason he doesn’t know or feel the plays.

Overall… I predict a spurs win. The blazers have the potential to come in and blow the spurs away by twenty points. I’ve seen about 5 second glances of that team and I don’t think that’s happening. The blazers have also not looked so great in the close games.

Anything can happen, but I think the odds favor the spurs.

No Hollinger fan really but interesting (I thought) blurb from his chat today:

Rip Wiley (UK)
Hi John. Which team (if any) do you feel will feel more pressure to get the W tonight – Portland or San Antonio?

John Hollinger (12:33 PM)
Easy — Blazers. First, they’re at home and second, their fans are already freaking out. Spurs fans don’t even look at the standings until Feb. 15.

Great preview, thanks for posting. I disagree with Roy vs. Manu, but you must be torn by wearing two hats.

Tonight, I just want to see someone virtually punched in the mouth. Supporting bigs have to get physical on D.

I really respect Bonner for what he is. But from what I’ve seen, he’s usually the opposing team’s offensive strategy the first 6 minutes of the game. Whoever he is guarding gets carte blanch. I really noticed that in Austin, pre-game.

I know normally that this is fine because he basically plays a hybrid garbage minute package, but when his lack of D gets the opponents rolling offensively, it gets slippery fast.

And this is coming from a big Bonner fan. I hope the best for the guy, but he’s not cutting it on defense.

Hoping for a win tonight.

So far, whenever we’ve been featured on TNT, we’ve lost badly. Whenever we’re on a SEGABABA, we’ve also lost badly. However, whenever we’re on ESPN, we won considerably. We’ve also won considerably when Mike has done the game simulations. So I don’t know what to think about our chances, actual basketball relevance aside of course.
Good preview Tim, here’s to hoping your team wins.

Spurs Off Eff: 110.2, good for 4th in the League
Trailblazers Off Eff: 102.5, a giant fallof to mediocrity for 16th

Spurs Def Eff: 106.3, 20th, good way to ruining Pop’s health
Trailblazers Def Eff: 101.9, 12th, a step in the right direction, but hey, Oden can only play so long before fouling out….

Very well done, Tim, as always. Some constructive criticism:

• Some random HTML tag is making the font size smaller beneath “Some other reading”.
• The grey background in the first part of the table provides very little contrast with the white font. Either switch back to black, or change the font color to black.
• It’s 12:30 AM in Argentina, not 11:30.

I think I’ll make it to tonight’s game… even though I have to go to the airport at 5 AM. :)

I dare you to add this at the end of the sentence about Project Spurs: Go say hi, they don’t bite…HARD!

Great preview Tim. For as many problems as the Spurs had with Boozer and Milsap last night and the fact that they forgot how to play D and rebound worries me, since the Blazers have Aldridge, Oden and Pryzbilla down low. Andre Miller is also a nuisance to Tony Parker, so I’m hoping Blake gets the majority of the minutes as long as our D closes out and doesn’t leave that guy open at the arch all night long. Word is that Nate will be shifting his lineup for the game.

BTW, Just a quick plug, but Jeff and I will be going live (audio and chat only) 2 hours prior to the game on Project Spurs if any of you guys want to go by, listen, participate in the chat or even call in and break down the game with us. We’ll be interviewing Sheed from Bust a Bucket around 8 p.m. central and we’ll come back on live after the game for a post-game show. Would be cool to see some PTR representation there.

First time checking out your site. I like it. Everyone seems cool! And Kevin Pritchard is a product of the organization, so thank you!

Keys to the game:
1) Oden staying out of foul trouble. If he is in the game, he owns the paint. He gobbles rebounds at both ends and blocks/alters a lot of shots. Scoring is still suspect. I know Timmy is rebounding beast but Oden is bigger and faster.

2) Containing Tony Parker. Darn near impossible to keep him out of the paint but it sure will help in #1, above. TP seems to feast on the Blazers because our lack of perimeter D. Heck, we even put his countryman, Batum, on him last year!

3) Bench Play. The better bench will win. I respectfully disagree that the Spurs bench is better than the Blazers although we haven’t shown much this year except for spurts by Travis Outlaw and 1 game by Rudy Fernandez. Przybilla is a defensive beast but also plagued with foul trouble. Andre Miller has been slow going but had 11 assists last game…

which leads me to this

This makes my prediction very tough. Certainly, B-Edger’s have been asking for it lately but is for the better or the worse? Personally, I think it is better long term but we may have a tough time initially. At this point, I’d rather see it sooner than later since it can’t be any worse than the funk we’re in now!

OK, I’ll be a homer: Blazer’s 96 Spurs 91

Good Luck and let’s all hope it is at least a good game!

Just a hunch I got from something I saw earlier… Ian and Haislip might be active for this game.

Outlaw would be a good backup small forward. Havent actually seen him play but hes got nice size and decent stats.

Hah, I’m glad LatinD isn’t around to see all the subject-line comments… yet.

Knicks down by 19 at the moment.

Tonight’s number games—guess the following:

1. By how many points will the Knicks lose tonight?

2. What will the combined score of the Clippers/Warriors game tonight be?

3. How many combined minutes for Finley and Bonner tonight?

broken

fragmentary

statements

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fun

we

should

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this

all

Someone check LDs temp

the

time

Game Thread

Game Thread