Schilly

I know this is totally irrelevant, but I was thinking about the streak and how it may have invoked some false expectations in fans. THere have ben 20 games since the streak the team is 10-10 in those 20 games. .500 is not bad basketball, most years it's 8 seed or at least right there in the thick of the playoff hunt going into the last few games.

Prior to the streak Portland was 5-12 at that point I personally looked at december and guessed we'd go like 5-10 or so. If someone had told me we would have played .500 ball for december I would have been thrilled. Instead as we all know the team was 13-2. Imsane!! but let's rewind a bit. I think the last 20 games have been the best barometer of the team,.they've had ups and down, they haven't been as bad as the 1st 17 games and nowwhere near as good as the following 13. Take the streak and adjust it to where tehy have been playing since. Just about .500, after tonight 1 game under .500.

Right now 28-22
Adjust streak to 7-6 and we'd be sitting 22-29 on pace for about 36 wins.

I guess my point is we probably are just under .500 team that got on a roll and picked up an extra 6 wins then should have been expected. So playing .500 ball really shouldn't be frowned upon when this team is growing so fast and will be that much better next season.

Schilly

I forgot to point out hat 12 of the 21 games since the winning streak ended were road games.

Xericx

I suppose. The west continues to get much stronger still. It may even be 2-3 seasons until we see the playoffs. Depends on how dominant Oden is, really.

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Establiiiishment...establishment...you always know what's best......

MAS RipCity

I expect nothing less than playoffs next year...1s or 8th..i dont care, just no more lotto partys

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PDX Fan Since '90

It's_GO_Time

I see what you are saying, but to me, it's not about being .500 over the last 20 games or .400 over the last 10 games. It's about the way they are playing. What happened? They were beating playoff teams at home and on the road.

But lately, I've watched a tough seven game road trip where they fizzled at the end (to be expected). Then a strange hoemstand to say the least where they showed some game against Denver and Clevland, but really came out flat in 5 of the 6 games (they were lucky to beat Atlanta and NY and hung on to beat a Bulls team missing 3 key players)

And now this road trip they have been getting blown out.

So although they are .500 in their last 20 games . . . to me the Blazers seem to be getting worse and worse.

One of the announcers said it . . . this team needs the all-star break badly.

craigehlo

What worries me lately is that this team looks like it learned nothing from the winning streak. It's not like the ball is moving the same on offense and we are simply missing shots that were once falling. Our offense looks like something from the Telfair era and the hustle on defense we showed in December is MIA.

The announcers said we need the All-star break to right the ship? But they also said that we just need to go home to right the ship. Then they said we weren't home long enough and needed a few days off. None of those things had any appreciable difference. Our poor play is deeper than fatigue.