Jan 24th, Portland vs Washington game preview

Jan 24th vs Washington
Gametime 7 pm Pacific Time
CSN

We last played the Wizards of Washington on December 3rd, beating them 98-92. If you missed that game or would like a look at the NBA tv recap and some highlights you may do so by clicking here.

Gilbert Arenas has been injured all season and the Wizards are lacking in firepower. But they have been getting some mileage out of well traveled veteran Antwan Jamison, DeShawn Stevenson, and all star Caron Butler. Not enough mileage to earn them a respectable record though. And Butler has struggled since returning to active duty after spraining his ankle.

Both Arenas and injured center Brendan Haywood probably will miss the rest of the season and Washington will likely swallow the rest of this season with the current active roster.

The Wizards have really struggled defensively. Whether it is handling pick-and-rolls, stopping hot players, preventing wide-open three-point attempts, getting back in transition, the Wizards haven't been doing it, and Coach Ed Tapscott is angry about it. Hopefully they will wait at least one more game before they start listening. Actually the Wizards are outgunned and worn down. They are simply not a very good team and are overmatched most nights. And instead of using this year to season his younger players Tapscott is riding his veterans hard hoping to squeeze as much as he can out of them. It won't be enough to make the playoffs. This years Wizards team is a lottery team.

Speaking of bad defense, that is what we saw from our own team last night in the Rose Garden,the Blazers defense practically handed Cleveland its early momentum, allowing it to drain 10 of its first 13 shots, most of them from James and Mo Williams. Williams torched the Blazers for a season high 33 points.

We also seemed to forget that we have a rather large center who can actually put the ball in the bucket and get the other team in foul trouble. I do not understand why, especially after the last game against Milwaukee, we did NOT pass the ball inside to Greg Oden. The Lakers beat this Cleveland team by going inside to Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, and with Greg and LaMarcus we are well equipped to employ the same strategy. It's not like Anderson Varejao is capable of stopping either one of those two.

Sentiment in the Blazer locker room was that they gave the game way. I'd have to agree with them. Add the poor offensive strategy and the lack of defensive effort together and it spells L O S S. Ask any player in the Blazers' locker room, and they'll almost surely say they sabotaged themselves from the outset. "We just waited too long to get going," reserve center Joel Przybilla said. "We watched them a little bit, I think. I don't know if it was because we were in awe of them or if we were in awe of LeBron, or what it was. "We have to realize we can play with anyone in this league on any night and show people that we are one of the best teams in the league, and tonight we didn't do that." Exactly.

Projected starters
Portland Trailblazers

Sergio Rodriguez -PG
Brandon Roy-SG
Nic Batum-SF
LaMarcus Aldridge-PF
Greg Oden-Center

Projected starters
Washington Wizards

Mike James-PG
Dominic McGuire-SF
Caron Butler SG
Antawan Jamison-PF
Andray Blatche-Center

As always there will be pregame, gametime, and postgame discussion of the game in the gameday forum
If you happen to miss the game you can click here and catch the video recap and hdtv highlights of the game