Exhale

Brandon Roy has an impingement on a bone in his heel, not his ankle, not his achilles, and I can un-fetal position myself. He will be gellin' with one of those shoe insert things, and he's going to miss tonight's game with the Lakers, but he'll likely be back on Friday against the Hornets. This is a tough week for our boys, I'd be thrilled if they took one of out of the next three, Dallas is the third on this first little home stand of the year. In other Blazer news, The Marcus has started practicing and is possibly going to make his debut this weekend. Zach clearly needs some help down on the low block, hopefully Aldridge can provide something over there. That's getting ahead of ourselves though, there is a game tonight in which they'll be drastically short handed. The matchup tonight:

Blazers:
Jarrett Jack
Martell Webster
Ime Udoka
Zach Randolph
The All Star (how long can a guy be out with a shot to the jewels?)

Lakers:
Smush Parker (seriously?)
The Black Mamba
Luke Walton
Lamar Odom
Andrew Bynum

The Lakers come roaring into this game at 4-1 on the season and just got 20 & 14 from their young center last night. Bynum looked tremendous, according to the LA Times, but Odom has done his disappearing act recently since Kobe's return. The Zen Master called him out apparently the other night for vanishing when Kobe's on the floor. The Mamba himself is still injured and not going off on any 50 point barrages as of yet. In fact, he's been a team player so far, he only took 7 shots last night, and has only taken 32 in three games. He's taken 32 shots in a half on more than one occasion. All that being said, when I read in the Oregonian that "Webster and Udoka will share defensive duties on Bryant" that leads me to believe The Mamba will be out in full effect tonight.

When the Lakers come to town it's always a show. They're still the Lakers, they still have Kobe, Phil, and the purple uniforms. I'm on a personal quest to go 82-0 against the spread this year picking Blazer games, I'm 4-0, the other guy is 2-2. They're getting 4 tonight in the Rose Garden, and if they had Brandon Roy I'd certainly take that. He won't be playing tonight though, and they're extremely short handed all over the floor. Reluctantly, I have to take the Lakers and give the 4 tonight.