Portland Trail Blazers Represent A Movement In The West
The Portland Trail Blazers find themselves on top of the Western Conference for the first time since 2001. Over 10 years since the Blazers have been the best team in basketball and like the teams in the late 90s and early 2000s, this 2011-12 Portland Trail Blazers team is playing with something that has been flying under the radar with all this talk of big name stars and Big Three’s. That something is unselfishness.
The Blazers have been known as the team of almosts. They almost beat the Lakers to make the NBA Finals a decade or so ago and they almost beat the Dallas Mavericks last year in the first round of the playoffs. I thought this season could have been the year up until Brandon Roy decided to retire with knee issues. After I heard about that, I thought the Blazers were going to fall off the ladder in the Western Conference and head back to mediocrity.
In a year that has been shrouded by the words “big three,” it his hard to find any team outside the defending champion Dallas Mavericks that does not have a great trio of players. The Heat, Lakers, and Celtics have their big three. The Clippers, Thunder and the Bulls are starting to develop into great teams with at least two good players and as for the Blazers there is not one ‘star’ player that leads that team.
That is unheard of in this kind of league.
Watching Portland defeat the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night has proved something to me. You do not need a big trio of players to win in this league especially in the Western Conference. The Blazers frustrated Kobe and the Lakers and with key sharpshooting from Wesley Matthews and Jamal Crawford and with dominant post games from LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace. The one key factor that I saw was the unselfishness from everyone.
Four players finished in double-figures. That is going to win them ball games.
Not only was their offense great but their defense was impeccable as well. The Lakers committed 13 turnovers while the Blazers only committed four, one each quarter.
The Blazers are playing like a team and with the win they improve to 5-1 overall and 4-0 at home and if they can keep this up, they may have a shot of winning the NBA Championship this year and maybe bring a whole new style of basketball to the NBA.
Follow Ryan Gaydos on Twitter @RyanGaydos
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