Game 30: Portland TrailBlazers (18-11) @ Phoenix Suns (19-10) l Monday l 7:00pm l FSNAZ

[SunsRback4Good]

Who: (5) Portland Trail Blazers @ (4) Phoenix Suns




When: Monday, February 22nd @ 7:00pm (9:00ET) FSNAZ

Where: PHX Arena, Phoenix, AZ









Portland Trail blazers starting lineup:


C- Kanter

F- Covington

F- Jones

G- Trent

G- Lillard


Reserves: Anthony/Simons/Hood/Little






Phoenix Suns starting lineup:

C- Ayton

F- Kaminsky

F- Bridges

G- Booker

G- CP3




Reserves: Cam/Saric/Payne/Crowder/Moore/


One Mission
One Goal
This Is What We Play For







Good luck charm!!!

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

[Book1Nation]

Without McCollum and Nurk this is a game we should win.

I’m not saying we will because Portland is still dangerous as hell, but if the Suns are the contender we think they are...they need to defend home court against a team missing their 2nd and 3rd best players

[sunsbg]

All the good luck charms and rituals just to turn out starting Frank is all that matters.

[SunsRback4Good]

All the good luck charms and rituals just to turn out starting Frank is all that matters.

I try making everything pretty and shiny but just as you point out starting Frank is all that matters. Suns are 8-0 with Kaminsky starting similar way we went undefeated (8-0) in the bubble. The 8 figure is very important to this team maybe we'll get 8 wins to advance to WCF? Might as well keep the trend going, huh?

[SunsRback4Good]

Without McCollum and Nurk this is a game we should win.

I’m not saying we will because Portland is still dangerous as hell, but if the Suns are the contender we think they are...they need to defend home court against a team missing their 2nd and 3rd best players

Even though Blazers have missed their 2nd and 3rd best player for months they still manage to be 7 games over .500. That is pretty impressive. I know for a fact if Suns were missing Ayton & CP3 for a month we would be around the .500 mark maybe even worse. If I was Phoenix I'd rather face Mavs, Warriors, or Spurs in the first round over Blazers as both their guards can drop 30 on any given night with Trent exploding for 6-7 3s a game. Just a tough matchup if the seedings remain the same.

[Barkley6]

I think this is one of those games where you let Dame do his thing and dare someone else on their team to beat you.

On offense, you gotta just continue to attack inside where they have....Enes Kanter. Who doesn't intimidate me at all. This is about getting the game plan right and executing it.

[bigfoot]

All the good luck charms and rituals just to turn out starting Frank is all that matters.

[dmastro32]

Super excited will be at this game in person!

[TouchPassDario]

Without McCollum and Nurk this is a game we should win.

I’m not saying we will because Portland is still dangerous as hell, but if the Suns are the contender we think they are...they need to defend home court against a team missing their 2nd and 3rd best players

Even though Blazers have missed their 2nd and 3rd best player for months they still manage to be 7 games over .500. That is pretty impressive. I know for a fact if Suns were missing Ayton & CP3 for a month we would be around the .500 mark maybe even worse. If I was Phoenix I'd rather face Mavs, Warriors, or Spurs in the first round over Blazers as both their guards can drop 30 on any given night with Trent exploding for 6-7 3s a game. Just a tough matchup if the seedings remain the same.

Paul/Bridges/Ayton are our top3 this year.

Paul is 12th in WS
Bridges is 16th
Ayton 32nd
Booker 94th
Jae 95th

[Qwigglez]

The Lillards, I mean Blazers have been crushing teams. They have great cohesion and their young guys like Trent Jr, Simons, even Jones Jr have been stepping it up in the absence of McCollum. Nurkic is continuously getting hurt, and I'm not sure why the Blazers didn't just keep Whiteside or have even tried to get Whiteside back since he isn't utilized very much with the Kings.
We should get the win, but I'd actually be more scared of Kanter stepping up gobbling the boards and easy putbacks if Ayton isn't careful. If the Blazers shoot lights out from 3 that will also be a problem.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Huge advantages with injuries and homecourt, win the 3 game series against them and top 4 is ours.

[TouchPassDario]

The Lillards, I mean Blazers have been crushing teams. They have great cohesion and their young guys like Trent Jr, Simons, even Jones Jr have been stepping it up in the absence of McCollum. Nurkic is continuously getting hurt, and I'm not sure why the Blazers didn't just keep Whiteside or have even tried to get Whiteside back since he isn't utilized very much with the Kings.
We should get the win, but I'd actually be more scared of Kanter stepping up gobbling the boards and easy putbacks if Ayton isn't careful. If the Blazers shoot lights out from 3 that will also be a problem.

The Blazers are mediocre. They’re a little better at full strength, but still .500ish in actual value. They’re basically the Knicks in SRS. Their strength (3pt shooting) is 1% better than ours (38 to 37). They do chuck a lot so they can win some games they shouldn’t like a 14seed beating a 3 in the tourney.

[TouchPassDario]

Very similar to the Pelicans. Nola a bit better.

[bwgood77]

Without McCollum and Nurk this is a game we should win.

I’m not saying we will because Portland is still dangerous as hell, but if the Suns are the contender we think they are...they need to defend home court against a team missing their 2nd and 3rd best players

Even though Blazers have missed their 2nd and 3rd best player for months they still manage to be 7 games over .500. That is pretty impressive. I know for a fact if Suns were missing Ayton & CP3 for a month we would be around the .500 mark maybe even worse. If I was Phoenix I'd rather face Mavs, Warriors, or Spurs in the first round over Blazers as both their guards can drop 30 on any given night with Trent exploding for 6-7 3s a game. Just a tough matchup if the seedings remain the same.

Paul/Bridges/Ayton are our top3 this year.

Paul is 12th in WS
Bridges is 16th
Ayton 32nd
Booker 94th
Jae 95th

It's really weird looking at WS/48..I figured that might help Booker given he missed a few games, but NO, not at all.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Booker is down on Offensive Rebounds, Assists, FT% from last season which hurt his metrics.

But think he'd be about the same WS rate if you took out his first few games where he had 35 turnovers.

[Saberestar]

Without McCollum and Nurk this is a game we should win.

I’m not saying we will because Portland is still dangerous as hell, but if the Suns are the contender we think they are...they need to defend home court against a team missing their 2nd and 3rd best players

Even though Blazers have missed their 2nd and 3rd best player for months they still manage to be 7 games over .500. That is pretty impressive. I know for a fact if Suns were missing Ayton & CP3 for a month we would be around the .500 mark maybe even worse. If I was Phoenix I'd rather face Mavs, Warriors, or Spurs in the first round over Blazers as both their guards can drop 30 on any given night with Trent exploding for 6-7 3s a game. Just a tough matchup if the seedings remain the same.

Paul/Bridges/Ayton are our top3 this year.

Paul is 12th in WS
Bridges is 16th
Ayton 32nd
Booker 94th
Jae 95th

Yeah, pretty obvious, whatever WS says...

[Saberestar]

It's gonna be a battle.

The Blazers are a really good team, they have been in the playoffs for the last seven consecutive seasons. They know how to fight against injuries with solid depth and Sttots is a good HC.

I am interested to see if we can get advantage in points in the paint. Kanter is a good rebounder and decent scorer but he is bellow average on defense, so this is a nice opportunity to finish plays at the rim with so little protection. Melo and Covington don't provide too much resistance around the rim neither.

[TouchPassDario]

Even though Blazers have missed their 2nd and 3rd best player for months they still manage to be 7 games over .500. That is pretty impressive. I know for a fact if Suns were missing Ayton & CP3 for a month we would be around the .500 mark maybe even worse. If I was Phoenix I'd rather face Mavs, Warriors, or Spurs in the first round over Blazers as both their guards can drop 30 on any given night with Trent exploding for 6-7 3s a game. Just a tough matchup if the seedings remain the same.

Paul/Bridges/Ayton are our top3 this year.

Paul is 12th in WS
Bridges is 16th
Ayton 32nd
Booker 94th
Jae 95th

Yeah, pretty obvious, whatever WS says...

Do you have a better metric? Win shares isn’t gospel but I’ve found it’s a really good heuristic.

[Saberestar]

Paul/Bridges/Ayton are our top3 this year.

Paul is 12th in WS
Bridges is 16th
Ayton 32nd
Booker 94th
Jae 95th

Yeah, pretty obvious, whatever WS says...

Do you have a better metric? Win shares isn’t gospel but I’ve found it’s a really good heuristic.

No, but I don't need a metric to say that Booker is at least one of our three best players so far this season.

I understand that some people love advanced stats, but I am more old school and I prefer the eye test to value players.

But do not get me wrong, I value stats too but not THAT much.

[TouchPassDario]

Yeah, pretty obvious, whatever WS says...

Do you have a better metric? Win shares isn’t gospel but I’ve found it’s a really good heuristic.

No, but I don't need a metric to say that Booker is at least one of our three best players so far this season.

I understand that some people love advanced stats, but I am more old school and I prefer the eye test to value players.

But do not get me wrong, I value stats too but not THAT much.

So, your metric is your eyes? In other words, you are trusting your own judgment over ~every metric there is? You must make a lot of money betting hoops!