Big confidence booster for the sliding Blazers. Damon Stoudamire is gelling with the first team and is playing within the system instead of forcing the issue. If he continues to play unselfishly the Blazers have a great chance to make a nice playoff run.
I know the talk is whoever wins homecourt between the Blazers & Wolves should win. But I think the Blazers simply have too much depth to get defeated by the T-Wolves. KG is going to come out with a lot of energy, but the problem with KG is he doesn't pace himself. As a result, he's spent in the 4th quarter and when his team needs him to make a basket he can't get it done. Case in point, the Magic game. The T-Wolves went off to a blazing start, but completely fizzled at the end of the game. Without help from his teammates, KG and T-Wolves could be looking at a 5 (4-1) game ousting by the Blazers. Sheed is going to put enough pressure on KG to make spend energy on defense, and the Blazers will use Zach Randolph, Dale Davis, Patterson, & Sheed to punish KG's body on both sides of the ball. The scores in the game should be close, and I really like the depth of the Blazers to win out in any close games. If the Blazers get consistent contributions from DA and Bonzi, they are going to easily handle the T-Wolves and send them to another 1st round exit.
