Blazers Come Home and Treat the Rose Garden to A Win

Last night, the Blazers met up with, former Blazers, Sergio "El Chacho" Rodriguez and Ime Udoka and their Sacramento Kings. The Blazers were coming off a disappointing 1 - 4 game road trip and were looking for some fire to propel them into a tough schedule ahead. The Kings on the other hand were looking to prove themselves having only won one game on the road so far.

Starting Five:
Brandon Roy
LaMarcus Aldridge
Joel Pryzbilla
Martell Webster
Andre Miller?!

Nate McMillan tipped his hat to Dre last night and gave him the start over Steve Blake, this was Blake's first time coming off the bench since 2007. Miller had a pretty quiet night with only 4 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists. LaMarcus Aldridge had a fantastic night once again. The 6'11, All-Star hopeful tallied a near double-double with 25 points, 9 rebounds and a season high 5 assists in 41 minutes of play. Fellow captain, Brandon Roy had a fantastic night as well tallying a double-double with 25 points, 5 rebounds and a season high 10 assists. The captains came through big for the Blazers last night and carried this team to a much needed win. Both of our 2010 All-Star hopefuls tallied a season high in assists which means excellent ball movement and great team work. Despite these performances from LA and BRoy, the star of the night was undoubtedly young guard, Jerryd Bayless.

Since the start of the season, Bayless has been fighting for more minutes on the court. Stories have constantly come out about frustration and anger in the sophomore guard and he finally had his moment to shine last night. Jerryd Bayless tallied a season high in both points and minutes with 14 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists in 24 minutes of play. JBay also showed his aggression getting to the line 10 times and shooting 80%. I offer a tip of the hat to Mr. Bayless for his excellent play and hope his minutes continue to increase. At the end of the game when they announce stats for the night, when Jerryd's numbers were announced everyone cheered, as they should.

You could tell the guys were happy to be home and have the crowd behind them. If you were following my Twitter updates you might have been worried when I updated saying LaMarcus was taken out of the game and wen straight to the locker room with a pained face, well he did return but, as revealed in post game interviews, he did in fact twist his already tender ankle. Never fear though, it seems a simple ankle sprain will not keep LaMarcus down. The Blazers fought hard and were able to come away with the win, 95 - 88, finally giving the team and the fans something to smile about.

The Blazers next play, former Blazer, Channing Frye and his Phoenix Suns on Thursday at 7:30 PST. This game will be broadcast nationally on TNT so be sure to check it out! You might recall that the Blazers hosted the Suns at about the same time last year and Brandon Roy EXPLODED with a career high 52 points! I'm just sayin, he's due for another spectacular performance! Let's go for 60 tomorrow BRoy!

Series Notes:

•  Portland and Phoenix split last season’s series, with the home team winning all four games. Portland scored 110.3 points per game

while allowing 109.3 points, both highs for the Trail Blazers in a Western Conference series last season.

•  In 2008-09, Portland earned its first home sweep of Phoenix since 1998-99. In the wins, Portland posted two of its three highest

scoring outputs of the season (124 points on Dec. 18, 129 points on Mar. 26).

•  The winning team has scored 100-plus points in 18 of the last 19 games in the series.

•  The Suns had knocked off the Trail Blazers 11 consecutive times, the longest series streak against Portland at the time, before Brandon Roy’s career-high 52 points, the second-most by a Trail Blazer in franchise history, lifted Portland past Phoenix, 124-119, on Dec. 18, 2008. Roy’s 19 free throws (of 21) also marked a franchise record.

(Pictures: Yahoo Sports)