Game 1 Rd 1 Portland vs OKC 12:30pm Sunday KATU

[Sinobas]

Paul George took two hard spills today, wonder how his shoulder is feeling.

[Moonbeam]

Why are people acting like we played a great game? We have almost 20 tos. And shot 41% from the field lol.

That’s kinda what OKC does, though: force turnovers and play some occasionally stifling defense. I see what you mean, though. Dame and CJ both had like C- games and the bench was maybe a D+ and Portland still won. OKC seems like they had more guys struggling, though.

[Moonbeam]

Paul George took two hard spills today, wonder how his shoulder is feeling.

I hope he is ok. He’s a fun player to watch when he is healthy (and not torching Portland).

[Moonbeam]

This win bumped our chances of a series victory to 36%, according to 538. That’s up from 26% before Game 1. I wonder what the odds would be if Portland wins Game 2.

The forecast is based on a player-adjusted ELO that takes into account players who are out. So it’s counting PG and CJ as being fully healthy when clearly neither is, so maybe those odds should be a bit higher for Portland as PG seems more pivotal to OKC’s success.

In any case, my pick of Portland in 7 isn’t looking like it’s completely crazy, at least at this early stage.

[PDXKnight]

Paul George took two hard spills today, wonder how his shoulder is feeling.

I hope he is ok. He’s a fun player to watch when he is healthy (and not torching Portland).

This matchup screams ideal playoff draw due to that prior injury. You never want to see someone get hurt but going into the playoffs it helps your odds tremendously if an opponent isn’t at 100 %. Of course that may not matter, okc has done very well against us recently and we have a long ways to go to win 3 more games in this series

[PDXKnight]

This win bumped our chances of a series victory to 36%, according to 538. That’s up from 26% before Game 1. I wonder what the odds would be if Portland wins Game 2.

I like being underdogs. Any time we’re favored this team seems to like taking that for granted

[Wizenheimer]

well, I guess getting 2 quarters of the good Dame is enough to get a win, especially when Enes is playing like Moses Malone

Portland is going to need more than 18 points from the bench. Harkless only scored 2 points, but his defense on PG set a tone

and Fitz, if you're reading: this game is why you play Kanter at C and not Zach. Kanter was MVP of the game; Zach was horrible

[Epicurus]

Not since Mehmed the Conqueror vanquished the Byzantines has a Turk been as mighty as Kanter today.

[monopoman]

Enes leading all Blazers with a +15 in this game, I think his defensive liability at least against some teams is vastly overrated. Certain teams will be able to take advantage of him for sure, but against the right team he can help you by a lot.

[cjx]

Play Skal in game 2!! Unleash the power of Baby AD!

[tleikheen]

Kanter +15 /Adams -13, in a close game...…. AND OKC ONLY 99 points down 15 points from their season average

[Blazinaway]

Play Skal in game 2!! Unleash the power of Baby AD!

Skal instead of Collins?

[Wizenheimer]

Play Skal in game 2!! Unleash the power of Baby AD!

Skal instead of Collins?

why not? Collins was terrible in the playoffs last season and was terrible today. Skal likely couldn't be worse and might be better. If Layman hasn't earned playoff minutes then I'm not sure Collins has

[Blazinaway]

Play Skal in game 2!! Unleash the power of Baby AD!

Skal instead of Collins?

why not? Collins was terrible in the playoffs last season and was terrible today. Skal likely couldn't be worse and might be better. If Layman hasn't earned playoff minutes then I'm not sure Collins has

no argument here, Collins looked like crapola, give Skal a shot

[The Sebastian Express]

I agree that Collins didn't play well today. The good news is that at least Stotts decided to not play Leonard in the second half, and he was also horrific.

So obviously the odds are extremely low that we'll ever have another nineteen point lead in this series again.

Despite this, I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to steal this series.

1. People will say OKC almost won despite playing terribly, but like GreenR has pointed out.. we didn't play particularly well either. Yes, OKC played some great defense for three quarters of the game. No denying it. But we also missed a lot of open shots too. We had a number of unforced turnovers from sloppy decisions. Somehow, we still won. We never panicked even when the lead got down to one.

2. Paul George caught fire shooting near the end, so if that keeps up I don't think we'll win. But if he continues to struggle with his shoulder (please note, OKC fans, not hoping for his injury to remain, only making an observation) we have a real shot.

3. Something to keep an eye on is how bad Westbrook's tweaked knee ends up being.

4. Hopefully Stotts never, ever, ever, ever, ever goes back to the five man bench unit in the playoffs out there at the same time and always keeps one of Dame and CJ in.

5. We have hope! I think that's all of us ever wanted after Nurk got injured, so anything else is kind of a blessing in surprise!

[monopoman]

I think Stotts was more willing to give that 5 man bench unit minutes because the lead was so large. Obviously in the playoffs it's risky but for a while that 5 man bench unit was at least treading water on the score.

[tleikheen]

Collins will get back in ,but get him out of there quickly if he can't get rebounds and keeps taking playoff punches and not answering back.

[Shem]

I was at the game:



Had great seats. The crowd atmosphere was great.

Kanter has been a life saver. We'd be toast if we hadn't signed him at the trade deadline. Watching him use his body being so close to the action to get rebounds was something else. He really does have a nose for the ball. We're lucky to have him right now. I really hope he wants to stay and would even consider a cut in pay to what he is used to getting in order to stay.

I still would like to have wondered what it could be like to have both a healthy Kanter and Nurk. Collins wouldn't have played and we wouldn't have missed him after getting 2 points and 1 rebound. Playing Meyers over Skal Labissiere doesn't make any sense to me at this point. Especially after watching him in the season finale against the Kings that Meyers started and played a lot of minutes in that game too. The rotation has definitely been shorten for the playoffs as Layman didn't sniff the court.

Aminu's late FT's were met with a couple of loud whistles in effort to distract him from a Thunder fan nearby. I'm surprised he didn't get his ass kicked by the angry fans nearby. That may have been the case had Aminu missed any of his FT's.

Hood was empty minutes because he had no defense and his "O" was pretty much invisible. Seth Curry definitely felt the presence of having CJ back because of the lack of shot attempts. Calling for the ball when wide open and nobody looks his direction.

One thing I'm reminded of since it's been 3 years since I sat that close to the action at a Blazer game is how much you notice that you wouldn't otherwise on TV. Let's just say that Westbrook gets the benefit of the doubt... a lot. Dame not so much. At least in this game. And a weird call happened where they called Turner for a foul and the reply showed what I saw. And that was it was Harkless who should have been called for the foul. And the funny thing is when the PA announcer said, "correction..." I thought it was going to be called on Harkless like it should and it was called on Dame and he wasn't in the play. Really weird how 3 refs could get it wrong like that. Or watching Dame get hacked on the arm on a couple of 3 point attempts and get no whistle.

[bondom34]

For as bad as OKC shot, they also don't have shooters. I think PG shooting relatively poorly is a lot more likely than OKC sustaining a lot of hot shooting, and if it's not PG they don't have wings. Felt like a near must win for both sides and the Blazers came up huge.

[DusterBuster]