Portland Blazes to a Win Over Charlotte

Tonight the Blazers returned home to face the big surprise in the NBA, the Charlotte Bobcats. Portland was coming off a big win in Dallas and was looking to bring home a win after a two game losing streak at the Rose Garden. Charlotte has experienced a surprising season playing excellent in the east and looking to be playoff contenders at 6th place and also naming the franchises very first all-star in Gerald Wallace. So basically Charlotte was not a team to be written off completely.

Your Starting Five:
LaMarcus Aldridge
Andre Miller
Martell Webster
Juwan Howard
Jerryd Bayless

LaMarcus Aldridge was the high scorer of the night with 17 points BUT I am going to give top honors to my boy, Dante "INFERNO" Cunningham for his EXCELLENT overall performance. Ever since pre-season and fan night I've been a big fan of DC. There was something about him where I knew he would do well and be a great addition to our team but, as everyone including probably Dante himself thought,  I also thought that we wouldn't see too much of Dante maybe some minutes towards the end of a game here and some 'that player is in foul trouble' minutes there. Then our entire team got injured and we all settled in to see our rookies grow up super fast. Inferno posted a career high in points and minutes with 10 points and 31 minutes played in the game. DC did so well, he played for the entire fourth quarter and only committed one foul. He also added 4 boards for us and all four were OFFENSIVE. That means he gave us 4 extra chances to score, way to go Inferno! It was so exciting to see Inferno step up to the plate and get things done for us. I'm even more excited to just see where he goes from here and see his career high 10 turn into a career high 20! TEAM CUNNINGHAM!

Ok, ok I'm done fangirling. LaMarcus Aldridge was the high scorer of the night with 17 points, 8 rebounds and 1 assist in 38 minutes of play. Nothing much to report here, it was same ol' same ol' for LMA. Towards the beginning of the game it was difficult for LA to get low and as per usual he swished his fade-aways but as we got to the end LaMarcus found a little more aggression and got to the line. Jerryd Bayless had a respectable game with 15 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist. I love Jerryd and I LOVE that he is one of few who can really drive to basket (heck, the first play of the game was a Jerryd Bayless drive for an and 1 situation) but Jerryd, you are on a team and sometimes I wish he would create plays for the team rather than just go to the hoop. Don't get me wrong I LOVE JBAY but 1 assist for a point guard is not too impressive in 21 minutes of play. NICO BATUM, Je T'AIME! Batum was a huge part of this game. He tallied 15 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Nico was huge down the stretch. He brought a level of intensity and energy that the Blazers were lacking back into the game and made big plays for Portland. You know, one big thing I miss from last year was the Spanish Armada consisting of Rudy & Sergio making crazy plays for each other, well I am pleased to report that though the Spanish Connection has passed, we might have a new connection on our hands, the Euro Connection. Rudy and Nico set up some BEAUTIFUL plays for each other, something that I really hope we see more of!

The Blazers ended up cruising to a win, 98 - 79. The game started off pretty slow and, to be blunt, I honestly felt like I was watching a bad JV high school basketball game. Both teams were playing slow and lazy and turning the ball over and not hustling. Even though we were winning by quite a bit (it actually kind of looked like the Utah game....just backwards) it felt like no one had scored or we were tied because both teams were looking less than fantastic. Luckily that phase passed and the Blazers cruised to a win. OH and young rookie out of Australia, Patty Mills, clocked in his first minutes as a Blazer tonight! He missed his only shot but looked darn good in the process. Hope we get to see more Patty!

Photo of the Night:

BATUUUUUM SHOCKA LOCKA

The Blazers next travel to Utah to take on the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.

• Utah leads the series, 2-0, winning by an average of 13.5 points (107.0-93.5) in those
games. The Jazz have shot 60.4% from the field (48.1% 3-PT) while limiting the Trail
Blazers to 40.1% shooting (19.0% 3-PT) in the first two contests of the 2009-10 series.
• The Jazz have won the last four meetings between the teams in Salt Lake City.

• The home team had won eight straight games before Utah earned a 106-95 win at the

Rose Garden on Jan. 27. The Jazz jumped out to a 21-2 lead and never trailed.

• Portland never led, trailing by as many as 27 points, in Utah’s 108-92 win in Salt Lake

City on Nov. 28 in the first meeting of the 2009-10 series. Carlos Boozer led all players

with 26 points for Utah, who shot 60.6% from the floor and 58.3% from downtown.

• The Trail Blazers and Jazz split last season’s series, 2-2, for the fourth time in the last

six seasons.

• In their two wins against the Jazz a season ago, the Trail Blazers posted two of their

four highest point totals of the season. Portland’s 125 points on March 31 marked its

highest scoring effort against the Jazz since April 14, 1988.

• Both the Trail Blazers (51.5%) and Jazz (51.2%) shot better than 50.0% from the floor during

the series in 2008-09, with Portland’s 51.5% marking its best vs. any team last year.     

1.     Foul Trouble is Not Our Friend - A big problem in our game against Utah last week was that we were racking up the fouls. Jeff Pendergraph, LaMarcus Aldridge, Juwan Howard and Dante Cunningham our "big" men especially need to do everything they can to stay out of foul trouble. Boozer likes to play rough and dirty in the post and he can really do damage to our guys if he constantly draws the fouls.
2. Don't Drink the Booze - Carlos Boozer is a tough guy to play against and every time we've gone up against the Jazz since Przy's injury, I realize how much I miss Przy talkin' trash to Booze down low. Anyway, we have to contain Booze and Williams. Together they're nearly unstoppable and apart they're just as good. LaMarcus tends to struggle against Booze so it'll be interesting to see how Nate handles that match-up.  
3. Keep Them Under 100 - Once again, we do much better when we are able to keep a team under 100 and Utah does better when they score over 100 so a low scoring game would be most in favor of the Blazers.
4. GOTTA MAKE YOUR FREE THROWS - I refuse to see another game where we have the chance to tie it up, take the lead/win and we miss the free throws (wishful thinking).            

EDIT: As accurately noted by our friends over at Holy BackBoard, it looks like Boozer and Brewer will be out tonight against Portland. Which means good things for us. Our bigs will have a much easier time getting position down low without Boozer checking them!   
                        

(Photos: Yahoo! Sports)