Blazers Bring It Back With A Win Against the Spurs

That's right Blazer Nation. Your eyes do not decieve you!! Last night our Portland Trail Blazers in their completely awesome Rip City retro jerseys, played the San Antonio Spurs at the Rose Garden and it was the game we've all been waiting for. The Spurs who were continuing an away game roadtrip had lost to the Utah Jazz the night before whereas our Blazers were coming off a two day rest and ready to play. Coach Nate McMillan decided to switch up the starting line up for this game having Andre Miller (the talk of the town) start, making everyone extremely excited! Here was our starting line-up last night:

Brandon Roy
LaMarcus Aldridge
Greg Oden
Steve Blake
Andre Miller

I personally was really excited to see this line-up in action! Good choise McMillan, gooood choice! The game started off with a bang for the Blazers. They played some excellent defense and were able to go on an 8-0 run against the spurs. The addition of Miller in the starting line-up made one heck of a differnce. He was able to spread the floor, run the ball and make some really good decisions for the team. In this game we saw something that seemed to have been missing from previous games and that was a high level of intensity. One of the most memorable moments of the night was when Martell Webster brought the noise back with an amazing dunk off of Rudy's missed three pointer attempt to close out the first quarter with a lead. Also notable was the addition of Jerryd Bayless to the rotation. J Bay clocked in his first minutes this season and was able to come away with a respectable 5 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist. You could definitely tell he had some nerves working against him but he was able to penetrate and draw the fouls.

Our high scorer of the night was, once again, Brandon Roy with 24 points. He also had 5 rebounds and 2 assists. Four of our five starters were able to get in the double digits last night. Steve Blake came away with 15 points,  6 rebounds and 2 assists. Greg Oden had a spectacular night with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 4 massive blocks. LaMarcus Aldridge had a slow and quiet night with 8 points and 5 rebounds. Andre Miller played with an air of confidence and came away with 10 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.

We definitely still need to work on closing games and putting teams away when we have the chance. The Spurs were able to come back within 5 points towards the end of the game but the Blazers were able to win it 96 - 84. (I wonder if we will ever see Chalupas this season...)

The Blazers next play against the Minnesota Timberwolves this Sunday November 8 at 6 PM at the Rose Garden.

(Pictures Via The Associated Press)