Miami Heat (29-9) @ Portland Trail Blazers (20-17), 9 PM EST

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Where: The Rose Garden
When: 9 PM EST, Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Key Matchup: Chris Bosh vs LaMarcus Aldridge


Aldridge has quietly become the leader of the Blazers amid Roy's absence, putting up All-Star numbers and keeping his team afloat above .500. It'll be up to Chris to see if he can try to limit him somewhat, not to mention Mr. Bosh is due for a good night himself.

Going for #30





Let's not suck

[HIF]

Heat cruise to victory. Heat win by 29 (okay considering the above post I'll say win by 30).

[DWadeno3]

I'm having nightmares of Miller abusing Arroyo and the Blazers' wing players draining a ton of threes since we all know how lazy both Wade and James can be on defense or how much they love to gamble and how good shooters can take advantage of it.
Aside of that, the Blazers play at a ridiculously slow pace (30th in the league in pace at 88.6 according to basketball-reference.com) and despite their offensive abilities define themselves through their defense (8th in the league in points allowed at 94.5 a game). So if we let them go off on us, we'll be in for a long night. Without Roy, they obviously struggle offensively (25th in the league in points per game at 95.2). Being a defensive oriented team is very typical of Nate McMillan though, but their realatively poor record definitely is caused by their offensive struggles and their consistency on the road, which leads me to my next fact:
Despite being only 3 games above .500, they Blazers are 12-3 at home and have won their last eight at Rose Garden, including convincing wins over the Magic, Bucks and Jazz.

So with all that being said, I think we're in for a very tough game.

[MiamiNative0722]

Another +.500 team to add to the list

[Pimpwerx]

I like the OP, Tim. Let's win, baby! Win! We can make history on this road trip. PEACE.

[GameTime_3]

Prediction; HEAT Win 105-94

[PDXKnight]

Blazers win!!!

[YounG_A]

hoping we become the 2nd team with 30wins this season.

let's go heat!

[StrawberryShake]

I hope they bring DAT INTENSITY so they can carry it over to the rest of the road trip, a win over the blazers will be really big. i hope wes mathews doesn't have a nick young/CDR game against us though.

On another note THE WARDEN is gunna lock up some

[Lord Hades]

Aldridge, Camby, Pryzbilla. The only thing Joel needs to lock up tonight is a nice, warm seat on the bench.

Discipline on the perimeter is going to be important. Can't afford to let Matthews (or even Fernandez or Mills) get open looks. Thinking about Miller posting up Arroyo is already making me cringe.

This could be an ugly game. Portland likes to play at a deliberate pace. A good test on the road, but I think we can get another tally on the left column of the standings.

[StrawberryShake]

slowest pace in da lee with Roy, they've been playing a bit more up tempo since hes been injured. I fully expect andre miller to take advantage of arroyo, Juwan howard better not see the floor tonight or im gonna have to shoot somebody.

[AllBall]

Gonna have to grind this one out. MM is probably going to get playing time as we gotta keep bringing him up to speed. That said, Lets Do This!

[PolakFury]

Aint nothing to it but to do it !!!

[shadowx]

GO HEAT!! I think this one will be a grinding game like the 2 with the bucks but lets get the 13 straight road win!!!

[Akshan]

WE NEED TO RUN RUN AND RUN and hope Dwyane Wade can slow down Wesley Matthews tht kid has being beyond amazing in his last 2 3 games this game won't be easy but I hope we see some MIke Miller

[fl4shwad3]

Lets go Heat baby! I wanted to go to this game because I live in vancouver BC and this is the closest nba team located to me but portland is a 4 hour drive and i have work tomorrow..Will definitely be watching on tv!

[b33nine]

*shameless self promotion*

I made this for our game thread on the blazer's board

[Lord Hades]

Sweet! Very nice work.

It's not even laden with profanity and derogatory messages toward us. Good job.

[TheKiwi]

Hahaha I like that Sean Marks made it onto the graphic. Nice work on it too.

[StrawberryShake]

*shameless self promotion*

I made this for our game thread on the blazer's board

Nice. Gooder One