Season Record: 1-7

Analysis analysis analysis blah blah blah blah blah blah analysis analysis analysis go out there and play hard!


PREDICTION:

Wolves 88 - Blazers 112

Hahah! That was a hilarious breakdown.

The Wolves are in dire need of a scapegoat (Al seems to be taking the cake now). As sad as it is I can't blame Rambis just yet. He is giving minutes to the young guys and letting them play out and learn the system. This is all we asked for from Casey, Wittman and McHale and now we have it. Not that we have anything better to put out on the floor.

As for tonight, it's hard to imagine we get blown out again. And by blown out, I mean lose by a margin of 20 or more. 10 is more realistic. Our next win should come aganst Memphis on Saturday, but we will have to sit through tonight, and Friday's Dallas game against Jason Terry and his always-seems-to-be-100% Field Goal %.

Blazers - 104, Wolves - 94

Leading scorer - Flynn

Blazers 110
Wolves 95

WallyWorld wrote:
As for tonight, it's hard to imagine we get blown out again. And by blown out, I mean lose by a margin of 20 or more.

With this year’s Wolves, I suggest we come up with terms for the different levels of losing so everyone knows what we mean when we write something like “blown out.” Here are a few suggestions, but I have a feeling you guys can come up with some more creative terms.

1-10 points: edged out
10-19 points: outplayed
20-29 points: blown out
30-39 points: embarrassed
40-49 points: dismantled
50+ points: McCantsed

Although Portland is much better than Golden State, I don’t expect to get McCantsed tonight. The Blazers are on the tail end of a back-to-back, but they probably get more tired during a shoot around than they did playing Memphis last night.

Prediction:
Wolves 92 – Blazers 105

1-10 points: edged out
10-19 points: outplayed
20-29 points: blown out
30-39 points: embarrassed
40-49 points: dismantled
50+ points: McCantsed

HOWL to YWG.

The Blazers are 7.5 point favorites. Bytheway, the Wolves started the year going 4-1 against the spread, but have now lost to the spread 3 times in a row to come back to an even 4-4 against the spread this year. I kind of like to look at that number, as it can give a good indicator of if a team is underacheiving/overacheiving compared to their expectations.

Anyway, Portland killed us a few days ago. They are athletic and big and deep. We aren't any of those things. I can't see us covering the spread tonight. I hope it's close though, as I will be in attendance (seriously, I don't renew my season tix, yet I still go to 4 of the 5 first home games?! Oh well, at least I'm doing the cheaper route this year).

My favorite Blazer: OUTLAW
Honorable Mention: Oden, Vanilla Gorilla, Roy, Rudy Fernandez

Score Prediction: Oregon 107, Minny 94

Wolves High Scorer Prediction: Al with 24

YWG wrote:
WallyWorld wrote:
As for tonight, it's hard to imagine we get blown out again. And by blown out, I mean lose by a margin of 20 or more.

With this year’s Wolves, I suggest we come up with terms for the different levels of losing so everyone knows what we mean when we write something like “blown out.” Here are a few suggestions, but I have a feeling you guys can come up with some more creative terms.

1-10 points: edged out
10-19 points: outplayed
20-29 points: blown out
30-39 points: embarrassed
40-49 points: dismantled
50+ points: McCantsed

Although Portland is much better than Golden State, I don’t expect to get McCantsed tonight. The Blazers are on the tail end of a back-to-back, but they probably get more tired during a shoot around than they did playing Memphis last night.

Prediction:
Wolves 92 – Blazers 105

Hahahahaha that's great!

I love the "Tiers of Losing" and couldn't agree more. I think we will be "Outplayed" tonight.

I take it Pecherov was scoring too much so they had to bench him.

We aren't even a real NBA team. We are shit and it's unbelievable how bad this "product" is that they are putting on the court.

It's the end of the third and we are down 25. Oh well, just another game I don't have to waste my time watching the end of.

Watching the game our defense didn't really seem that bad during the stretches Portland was pouring it on. We gave up a slew of easy lob passes but aside from that it wasn't hideous.

The game seems so easy at times for Al. 7-15 tonight isn't bad but he missed atleast 4 shots that would have been gimmies last year. We haven't seen anything close to the guy who would get the ball down low and deke his way up and through a triple team. As hard as we've been on him it'd be folly to trade him based on his value right now. He'll be much better than this.

Some other thoughts:
I'd rather see more Wayne Ellington and less Sasha Pavlovic. I'm sure someone will rip Flynn for his little one on one show during a few possessions at the end. I don't mind, he needs to learn how to get to the rim and score and he might as well practice it in a game that is well out of reach. How is it possible that Gomes played 32 minutes and had a +12 in that game?

pants wrote:
Watching the game our defense didn't really seem that bad during the stretches Portland was pouring it on. We gave up a slew of easy lob passes but aside from that it wasn't hideous.

The game seems so easy at times for Al. 7-15 tonight isn't bad but he missed atleast 4 shots that would have been gimmies last year. We haven't seen anything close to the guy who would get the ball down low and deke his way up and through a triple team. As hard as we've been on him it'd be folly to trade him based on his value right now. He'll be much better than this.

Some other thoughts:
I'd rather see more Wayne Ellington and less Sasha Pavlovic. I'm sure someone will rip Flynn for his little one on one show during a few possessions at the end. I don't mind, he needs to learn how to get to the rim and score and he might as well practice it in a game that is well out of reach. How is it possible that Gomes played 32 minutes and had a +12 in that game?

Because Gomes is awesome!

All this will be worth it when it's April and we are looking for a couple more loses to get the worst record. So, with all this losing we don't have to worry about losing some more because we will already have the worst record.

But, yah...we are not a real NBA team. I think the Kansas Jayhawks could beat us.

College Wolf wrote:
pants wrote:
Watching the game our defense didn't really seem that bad during the stretches Portland was pouring it on. We gave up a slew of easy lob passes but aside from that it wasn't hideous.

The game seems so easy at times for Al. 7-15 tonight isn't bad but he missed atleast 4 shots that would have been gimmies last year. We haven't seen anything close to the guy who would get the ball down low and deke his way up and through a triple team. As hard as we've been on him it'd be folly to trade him based on his value right now. He'll be much better than this.

Some other thoughts:
I'd rather see more Wayne Ellington and less Sasha Pavlovic. I'm sure someone will rip Flynn for his little one on one show during a few possessions at the end. I don't mind, he needs to learn how to get to the rim and score and he might as well practice it in a game that is well out of reach. How is it possible that Gomes played 32 minutes and had a +12 in that game?

Because Gomes is awesome!

I see.

Kahn is probably peddling him as the "Blazer's Killer" right now. I hope he gets some custard filled long johns in the deal.

Team Motto: United We Run.
Front office Motto: No solid role player left untraded.

pants wrote:
College Wolf wrote:
pants wrote:
Watching the game our defense didn't really seem that bad during the stretches Portland was pouring it on. We gave up a slew of easy lob passes but aside from that it wasn't hideous.

The game seems so easy at times for Al. 7-15 tonight isn't bad but he missed atleast 4 shots that would have been gimmies last year. We haven't seen anything close to the guy who would get the ball down low and deke his way up and through a triple team. As hard as we've been on him it'd be folly to trade him based on his value right now. He'll be much better than this.

Some other thoughts:
I'd rather see more Wayne Ellington and less Sasha Pavlovic. I'm sure someone will rip Flynn for his little one on one show during a few possessions at the end. I don't mind, he needs to learn how to get to the rim and score and he might as well practice it in a game that is well out of reach. How is it possible that Gomes played 32 minutes and had a +12 in that game?

Because Gomes is awesome!

I see.

Kahn is probably peddling him as the "Blazer's Killer" right now. I hope he gets some custard filled long johns in the deal.

Team Motto: United We Run.
Front office Motto: No solid role player left untraded.

In all honesty... I hope we trade him.

He's my favorite player and it kills me to read all the crap that bloggers and commentors talk about Gomes. He's far, FAR from what is wrong with this team, and deserves much better. Trade him to someone like Boston, Cleveland, or SAS. Please.

Before I get to the game, did you know that the Nets can have as little as $20 million committed next season? Lopez, Harris, Lee, Williams, and CDR. That's it, not a single bad contract. Plus they'll have one of the top picks in the draft. That right there is easily better and younger than Lebron's supporting cast in Cleveland.

Lebron is definitely ending up on the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nyets. He'll be chilling w/ Jay-Z and that Russian dude all the time.

Onto the game. We suck. Here's the box score

- I felt like we played pretty well when we had big lineups out there (AL/Hollins & Jawai/Hollins) and played horrendously when we went small (AL at center and Gomes or whoever else at PF). I also believe this was fairly easy to see.

- The Blazers went w/ Outlaw at PF in the 2nd quarter and we countered with a Sessions, Ellington, Pavlovic, Wilkins, and AL lineup and got absolutely murdered. Why are we countering Outlaw at PF!? Who cares! We should have gone either AL/Hollins, Jawai/Hollins, or Pecherov/Jawai and pounded and outrebounded them until they wised up enough to put their big guys back in. Why is Pech suddenly not playing? Whatever I guess.

-Gomes is our MVP because we lost by 23 and he somehow had a +12 in 32 minutes of play while the 2nd "best" on our team was -5 by Hollins.

-Oden was beast. I think Durant will always be better but Portland doesn't have to kick themselves about it anymore because Oden looks really good.

-Rude Fernandez killed us with his dagger 3-pointers.

-Brewer was terrible at everything tonight.

-Flynn had one of the most pathetic flop attempts in the 3rd quarter I've seen in awhile. Blake blew by him, barely touching him, and Flynn flew backwards like he got hit by a Nate Jawai with a full head of steam.

-Pavlovic is really streaky. I think he should start. If he's hot, you keep him in and ride him until he starts missing. If he's cold, you take him out when the first subs come into the game and then try again at the beginning of the 3rd quarter.

My New Starting Lineup v4.0

PG: Sessions
SG: Pavlovic
SF: Gomes
PF: AL
C: Hollins

Others receiving minutes:
Flynn
Brewer
Stewie Pecherov
Jawai
Ellington

Gotta shake things up.