Friday, December 5, 2008

Portland at Boston, Pre-pregame

Big huge nationally televised game for Portland tonight. A win will be tough to earn, but would raise the Blazers national profile to elite status. All they have to do is beat the defending champ Celtics (18-2) in Boston.

This game will be a good opportunity to see how much growth the Blazers have achieved. Last season the Celtics intimidated and muscled Portland. This time around Portland is a tad more experienced and loaded with even more talent.

If you can pick out a semi-weakness of the C's defense it would be that they don't have much in terms of long athleticism to defend the outside. This helped Travis Outlaw average 20 a game against them last season. Portland has been winning lately without hitting a ton of jumpers, but they will need to hit those outside shots to be victorious tonight.

It will be interesting to see how Oden responds to the rough interior Celtic defense. Will Perk get in his head? Will KG totally punk him out? Some things we do know; GO's bad habits (making himself smaller, bringing the ball down low, putting it behind his head) will simply not be tolerated in Boston.

Anyways, more game links to get you excited:

Canzano wins prestigious DeceptivelyQuick award for best pre-game column of the day [Oregonian]

Bust a Bucket picks the Celtics to win (booooooooooh!)

Blazers Edge preview

OLive stuff

Blazers want payback

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