A Christmas Story

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what the hell is going on with this team. They've beat two pretty good teams in a row, one in convincing fashion, and then last night's bit of absurdity. They came from 27 points down against the Hornets to win on a late free throw from Z-bo, who continues to do his Superman routine out there. 20 & 10 guys are hard to find, but 30 & 10 guys are MVP's.

Anyway, I finally came up with an answer to what's been going on. Looking at the roster as it's currently constructed you have Jarrett Jack, who led his team to the national title game and played in the quality ACC. Juan Dixon played in the ACC as well and won a national championship. The All Star played at Kentucky, also making deep runs in the NCAA tournament. We all know about Brandon Roy. These guys are players that have been in tough spots and won a lot of high profile games. Add to that a couple very talented young players in Webster and Outlaw, plus Z-bo, who did play for Tom Izzo for a year but it a lot more of a young guy than a battle tested NCAA tournament guy. All they needed was a spark, and then it happened.

Ricky Davis was mocking all of them, mocking the crowd, the Wolves were pulling away in a scene that looked all too familiar to Blazer fans. Then they snapped. It was like when Ralphie finally snaps and beats up Scott Farkas. All those players that had won all those games in college finally reached the breaking point. Now they've seemingly put the idea in all the young guys that if you fight and scratch and claw you can win a lot of games in the NBA. If they continue to bust ass every night then yes, they can win 35-40 games, maybe more.

Unfortunately, there is the news that Brandon Roy could be out a while. He's out at least a week or two, and if he has surgery the expected down time is 4-6 weeks. They do get The Marcus back, hopefully he can give them something worthy of a #2 pick in the draft. The key now though is going to be Martell. He's got to score. Jack's going to do his thing, and if Z-bo is going to keep playing like this, all they need is that perimeter gunner to keep it going. They're 4-2, and if they can get through this brutal month of games without Roy at 8-8 or better, watch out.