Game 20: Abracadabra

The Wizards had no spell to cast in the fourth quarter. So that's when Roy went all Harry Potter on them. 12 points in 8 minutes from "The Reason" (Yes jorginvegas, I know that's yours. No jorginvegas I will not give you any royalties) and a couple of nifty dishes to open guys for some clutch buckets.

Greg Oden's put-back smash was super sweet, like sugared honey... I think the rim is still rattling today... Backboards around the league tremble at the mere mention of Oden's name.

This was a clearly tired Blazer team playing a clearly tired Wizard's team and still finding the will to push themselves over the top. Great effort from the guys, but there's obviously room to improve. It's nice to say that this year, look at the calendar and see that the Blazers finish off the season with more home games than road games. Even before the Sonics were stolen from Seattle the Blazers had a lot of miles on their road, now they travel further more often than any other team. I wonder why Nate doesn't go a little deeper into his bench during games a little more, just a couple minutes here and there for Ike and Bayless. I'm not talking major time, just tell them their role, i.e. "Jerryd, just come upcourt and pass" or "Ike, just grab some rebounds" It's a long season and those guys should spell the team occasionally just to keep the rest of the team fresh for the stretch run. Would they really be hurting the team in-game all that much? Even during the blowouts the Blazer's have had Jerryd and Diogu barely played 8 combined minutes.