Trailblazers-Spurs: A 96-93 Victory For Portland Despite Missing Brandon Roy

Since All-star guard Brandon Roy has been injured I’ve started appreciating him in a more refined way.

I had previously enjoyed Roy only for his pure awesome athletic ability; I had never worried about identifying the importance of every single thread in his superhero cape.

Early in his Blazers career I got so tired of enumerating his strengths that I decided to nickname him “Everything” just so I could be done with it. This not only allowed me to be lazy with my game recaps by providing the obvious “Everything was everything” line, but it also let me simultaneously reference Diana Ross, Brand Nubian, Lauryn Hill , and the band Phoenix all in one article.

That is some excellent demographics coverage.

But, none of that really mattered tonight.

The Trailblazers came out with energy early and utilized some sort of foreign strategy called the “fast br-eak.”

Rudy seems quasi-magical when he’s on and running and tonight he lifted the team to a higher level in the first half. All the while, Miller was managing Rudy’s sudden exuberance adeptly.

The results were impressive...

Portland shot .575 from the field and amassed 18 assists in the first half. It was some of the most beautiful offense we’ve seen this season.

Bloggers and local-media peeps  were reaching for their classic “WHY DOESN’T THIS TEAM RUN MORE!?!” templates before realizing that, even with all of that hot sexy offense, Portland went into the half down by two.

Portland refused to quit in the fourth quarter—as we’ve seen over and over again with this team, regardless of which Blazers are on the floor.

I used to accept the “too young to know better” line, but there is more to Portland's drive than naiveté.

Heart is ingrained into this team’s culture.

They kept working and while the Spurs shots were going in all night, eventually they started missing.

LaMarcus stayed hot and Andre Miller, who was shooting cold throughout most of the game, started making critical buckets and often finding Martell Webster in position to make something good happen. Webster, who hit two big open threes in the clutch (5-5 from distance on the game), iced the game from the line late (4-4 FT, all game sealers).

BOX SCORE

Photo: AP