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They fought it out well, all things considered.

Any word on the health of Pek and Rubio? The way we're going I'll assume Pek has a broken back and Rubio has popped both his knees out.

Once again, to much overreacting. We would have won this game if its not for the Blazers crazy/improbable 3 point shooting las night. Portland is a good team and we almost steal the game with half of our roster. Dont discard the playoffs yet, long season still ahead.

Now I remember why I don't go over to the Blazers forum..

A couple of them bring up points that some posters made about the Blazers and generalize us as a fan base.

I wish our team was healthy, they made a franchise-tying record in 3s and almost lost to us without 3 of our best players in the game.

They seem to be a mix of very solid and homertastically annoying fans on the Portland board. I wouldn't paint them all with one crayon, it's like another forum blaming all of you for Klomp and me.

Tirion wrote:

Devilzsidewalk wrote:it was a nice run, but there's just wasn't enough firepower out there to finish the comeback. I still feel good about the core of the team though, just bad luck w/ injuries. I still think Love/Pek/Rubio/Shved/AK/JJ/Dante and Budinger is a team thats worth sticking with until they get healthy and see if they can do some damage and I hope they don't make any big trades yet

Not this season I'm afraid. The West is deep. Love is out at least a month. AK is going to miss time at some point. Rubio is not Adrian Petersen.

And after that? The Love contract loses a year. AK has a player option. Budinger is an URFA. Pekovic needs to get paid.

There is a significant chance we will never see what this core is fully capable of.

My plan is to see them make a smaller move to improve the bench, hang around .500 until after the all star break, make a run, get a 7th or 8th seed and face Okc who we matchup against, San Antonio who we handled last year...not that we win the series, but we can build on something and come back next year older and better. Seems worth it to stick with these guys to me. The frontcourt is fine, we just need Rubio to improve his conditioning, bring in a shooter via trade, and let Shved continue to develop.

No way we let Pek go, if worst comes to worst.. we re-sign him and trade him like what we saw Denver do with Nene.

Adelman will pull for Budinger to get re-signed.

Rubio will have an off-season to get back to himself.

I still think we can make a good run after the all-star break, this team isn't done yet. If we can stay in the playoff hunt until the all-star break, we can have Love back, a healthier Rubio, Budinger and hopefully a new wing player.

Klomp wrote:

karch34 wrote: Lee who wasnt nearly as talented was given reign to play through a myriad of mistakes. Don't see DWill getting anything close to that kind of treatment.

Lee HAD to play because we had no one else at SG. At SF/PF along with Williams, we also have Kirilenko and Cunningham who have both outplayed him early this year.

I understand that point, but I think we've overused AK and to an extent Cunningham on minutes. Watching Lee and Barea play through the mistakes because we've got no one else is understandable, but the fact that we have Williams on such a short leash is still frustrating. Not saying he will get better or more consistent, but I think with Love out giving him 5 minutes through 3 quarters isn't the plan.