Well, unfortunately last night in game six of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, the Portland Trailblazers finally succumbed to the final defeat of the season. The Phoenix Suns managed to beat the Blazers four games to two in the series and thus will move on to face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.
Portland, despite being loaded with young impressive talent, has just been plagued with ridiculous amounts of injuries to nearly all of their key players this season. We still did not have our two centers of Oden or Przybilla back over the past few months of the season. And to add insult to injury, (literally) our all-star Brandon Roy ended up with a meniscus tear in one of the final few games of the regular season, where we beat the hated Lakers on their own home floor.
While Roy returned to play after surgery in the last two playoff games against the heavily favored Suns, one cannot help but wonder if he had been healthy for the first four games if that might have been enough to propel the Blazers past the Suns into the second round instead.
Well, after drying my tears, I have to say that I am very proud of our Trailblazers and the herculean effort the guys put forth in spite of this horribly injury-plagued season. They still managed a 50 win season and a sixth seed berth in the playoffs. My only hope is that they can get rested and repaired so that they can be contenders next year.
With Nate McMillan's coaching and the talent and chemistry on the team, anything is possible. In the meantime, I guess I am now a Utah Jazz fan for the remainder of the playoffs. Barring their demise, anyone but the evil Lakers will do just fine!
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