Saturday, March 7, 2009

Nuggets Recap and T'Puppies Preview

Nuggets Recap

Thursday night was a difficult pill to swallow for the Blazers who were flying high after erasing a double digit comeback win to defeat the Pacers on Wednesday night (this was Portland's 14th win when trailing by double digits, most in the NBA). The game was at Denver which is always a tough place to play when you take into account the fans and the altitude.

Outlaw was the standout on the offensive end accounting for 15 points and 6 boards in just 27 minutes of play. Roy and Aldridge had decent games scoring wise going for a combined 41 points, but if you add up the total assists and rebounds from both players the number is only ten.

Bottom line from the nuggets game was the excellence of Denvers offense. It appeared that the Nuggets could score at will even when faced to take a somewhat difficult shot (this point proved when Roy sprinted out on a wide open Mello to scare him off a 3 point shot who then passed it to Kleiza who hit a fadeaway deep 2 with a hand in the face). Denver ended the game with four players over 15 points including Mello’s game high 38 (who had sat out one game earlier against the pistons for behavioral issues. K, enough dwelling on the past, its time to look to the future, like Mike does everytime he stares into Keysha’s eyes (kids, white picket fence, dogfighting pit in the basement, right mike?), and take a look at tonights game against Minnesota.

T’Wolves Preview
Tonight the Blazers will try and finish a season sweep of the lottery bound Timberwolves. The first two games were close wins for the Blazers, but with the out for the year injury of Al Jefferson (which makes the opposing teams now sell tickets by saying now coming to your town Kevin Love and the T’Wolves, ew, anyone going to that game outside of his homestate?), last game was a 20 point blowout. Minnesota has lost nine out of their last 10 and 8 straight. Not to mention the game is in Portland (being attended by mama and papa goose, shoutout) where the Blazers are a remarkable 25-5. On to the Keys of the game.

1. Have Nate go remind the T’Wolves of something…
Nate needs to go whisper in Kevin Mchale’s ear the names of Greg Monroe, Ricky Rubio, Hasheem Thabeet, and Stephan Curry to see if we can get them to take a good old fashion dive to try and lock up a top lottery spot.

2. Keep Foye and Telfair out of the paint
Make Minnesota shoot jumpers to beat you, Telfair and Foye are both solid at getting to the hoop, but neither have stellar J’s.

3. Don’t look to the next game too soon
Although Minnesota is the “St. Helens” of the NBA, we cannot take them too lightly and still need to come out and set the tone early. Put this game away and don’t let them hang around.

Gamblers Corner
The spread is 14 and the O/U is 199....I feel this is a really tough call for both the spread and the O/U, but if I were to have to pick, I would take the Blazers and the Under.

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