Portland's All-Star

Managed to get two tickets to last night's Blazers vs. Bulls game and, wow, what a fun time. Can't remember a more exciting game that I've seen in person -- and made all the better sitting next to my sweetie. (I think, after this game, she now understands the importance of offensive rebounds.)

Anyway, the undermanned Trail Blazers managed to beat back a late challenge by Chicago and won the game, 109 to 103. Andre Miller and Rudy Fernandez played great all-around games but it was LaMarcus Aldridge who rose above all -- including the Bulls' marvelous Derrick Rose -- with a career-high 42 points, including two free throws at the end of the game that clinched the win.

For years, Aldridge has been the No. 2 guy on the Blazers, playing second fiddle to three-time All-Star Brandon Roy. But with Brandon out of the lineup most of the year, Aldridge has stepped in as the team's leading scorer and rebounder and just missed out on being named to this year's Western Conference All-Star team.

Of course, you'd expect to see several handmade signs around the Rose Garden last night proclaiming Aldridge as "Portland's All-Star." But that was only part of the fun. One sign read: "Marry Me, LaMarcus" and another said "Marry Me, Rudy." Two teenage girls next to us brought a couple of signs -- including one that read "Be My Groom, Batum" -- and finally got on the big screen with 30 seconds left in the game. They were thrilled.

Visible next to them was a good-looking lady with black-framed glasses and a huge smile on her face: Lori. :-)

The Blazers eclipsed 100 points, so every fan leaving the arena got the customary coupon for a free chalupa at Taco Bell. (Reward or punishment? Only our stomachs can tell.)

We crossed the street, waited five minutes for our bus and were home about 20 minutes later. Have I said lately that I love this inner-city neighborhood of ours? So convenient to everything.

Photograph by Bruce Ely, The Oregonian. Check out his photo gallery from last night's game.

Blazers: A new beginning

The last time I wrote about our NBA team it was with a mixture of disappointment and humiliation. I snagged a ticket for Game 3 of the 2009-2010 playoffs against the Phoenix Suns. The Trail Blazers never got untracked that day. They lost by 19 points and wound up getting bounced out of the first round of the playoffs for the second year in a row. 

Tonight was redemption. The Blazers overcame a six-point deficit heading into the final quarter and won going away from the Suns, 106-92, in the home opener for this, the Blazers' 41st season.

Our friend Colleen invited Lori to go with her, but she declined, knowing the game would end too late for her to get enough rest before rising early the next day. (It's not uncommon for Lori, as a personal trainer, to be on her feet for six consecutive one-hour sessions with clients.) Colleen offered me the ticket and I happily accepted.

 

Marcus Camby

We sat in the club level seats and had a nice conversation before the game as we grazed on the  buffet-style offerings. During the game, it was a little harder to talk, given the noise level in the arena. We agreed we liked it better when fans used to show their enthusiasm in an authentic, unscripted way -- that is, reacting to highlights of the actual game. Nowadays fans are whipped into a frenzy through any number of gimmicks: an ear-splitting multimedia show; gyrating dancers and gymnasti stunt teams; a faux cannon that shoots T-shirts into the stands; a blimp that drops coupons from above; etc. It wasn't until the final six minutes or so that the manufactured noise yielded some real  yelling and cheering, prompted by a flurry of baskets by Brandon Roy and Nicolas Batum and other exciting plays that drew fans out of their seats.

After last year's injury-depleted team got eliminated from the playoffs, I'm hesitant to expect too much from this year's team. Like the rest of Portland, I will hope for the best and cross my fingers that the key players can stay healthy for a whole season. Tonight was a good start.

Photo by Bruce Ely, The Oregonian

A debacle at the Rose Garden

Spirits were high throughout the city and the anticipation of NBA playoff basketball couldn't have been greater when the Phoenix Suns came to town to take on the Trail Blazers.

As I stepped off the bus on the south side of the Rose Garden 20 minutes before tipoff, I could hear a local band (think the Shitty Beatles from "Wayne's World" doing a bad cover of "Livin' on a Prayer") entertaining the pre-game crowd and I could see lots of face paint and red jerseys all around me. Most were wearing No. 7, just like their hero, Brandon Roy (above), and there were smatterings of Aldridge, Webster, Oden and Przybilla.

Twenty minutes after the game began, the Blazers had begun to crash and burn. They trailed from start to finish en route to a 108-89 loss that wasn't even that close and put them behind in the series by 2 to 1. What's worse...I was seated next to a mom and dad and their young son, who just might have been the only three Phoenix fans in the whole arena. The parents were fine but the kid, wearing a Steve Nash jersey and a Suns baseball hat, started getting on everyone's nerves in the second quarter.

I mean, the arena was already pretty quiet with the home team getting blown out, so when the boy, maybe 10 years old, started making razzing noises in an attempt to rattle whichever Blazer was taking (and missing) foul shots, it felt like salt in the wound. Fortunately, his dad counseled him to put a lid on it.

All in all, a disappointing experience. I've never seen fans more pumped up -- or more frustrated -- than last night. If the Blazers hadn't dug themselves such a big hole, I'm certain the crowd support would have put them over the top.

Next game: Saturday. I'll be at work but I'm sure TVs will be on all around the office.

Photo of Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge: Bruce Ely, The Oregonian

Philly 104, Portland 93

I couldn't have asked for a better scenario. Lori was having some friends over and I had a free evening, so I bought myself a single ticket to tonight's Trail Blazers game, figuring they'd make quick work of the lowly 76ers and extend their improbable winning streak to five.

Pfft! Didn't happen.

The Blazers used their superior talent to build a halftime lead but then lost it in the third quarter and never regained it, suffering an embarrassing loss to one of the NBA's worst teams.

There's never a guarantee, even when you think the game is a gimme. A win would have been nice, though, because everything went so right. An early dinner of turkey leftovers, a short walk to the bus stop for a five-minute ride to the Rose Garden, a great aisle seat in the third deck -- even a decent shot of the court and the scoreboard (above) before the game started.

I was looking at the Blazers' schedule at halftime and mentally penciling in a game or two I might attend in February. Now I've got second thoughts. (Yes, I know I sound spoiled. Everybody loves a winner. Even with the loss, the Blazers are still just a half-game out of first place in their division. But had they won, they'd be in first place as I write this.)

Oh, well, maybe the best thing about the evening is that I walked home from the game in the cool, crisp air. It took only 25 minutes and it made me think, "How cool is this?" Hard to beat for an urban experience, when you live so close to the arena you don't have to drive or even take public transportation to the game.

Rip City

Riding home on the bus tonight, I looked up just as we were passing the Rose Quarter -- the concrete wedge tucked between the Steel Bridge, Broadway and I-5 -- and saw clusters of people, young and old and mostly male, headed toward the same event: Game 5 of the NBA playoffs between the Houston Rockets and our Portland Trail Blazers.

They were wearing red jerseys with familiar names and numbers: #7, Brandon Roy. #5 Rudy Fernandez ...

The game starts in about 20 minutes, with the Blazers trying to stave off elimination by winning tonight -- and then Thursday -- and then Saturday.

It's a remarkable thing to see how a city -- heck, an entire metro area -- rallies behind a group of professional athletes and their coach. At first, you'd think it was nothing more than a group of young guys with good character who are representing Portland to the rest of the country via the national coverage that comes along with these things.

But, actually, I was talking to a co-worker about this the other day. I think Portlanders are happy to have this diversion given the sometimes-depressing news that can just wash over you like a wave.

Start with the weakened economy, the banks bailout, the outlandish Wall Street salaries and the partisan posturing that defines national politics. Consider our foreign entanglements in Afghanistan and Iraq, the misguided suicide bombers all over the Middle East, the revelations about torture at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Closer to home, the litany of fatal accidents, house fires, petty crime and the occasional homicide become so common as to resemble wallpaper.

Is it any wonder that everybody becomes a Blazers fan? My favorite anecdote: Leaving the gym yesterday morning, I saw an older woman, probably in her 70s, at the front desk. She had a hand on her walker and was bent over, chatting with the receptionist. "I don't know what happened in that fourth quarter, " she said of the game Sunday, when the Blazers lost by a single point. "They couldn't shoot. They couldn't rebound..."

I'm guessing that lady is parked in front of her TV right now, hoping the Blazers will catch fire and rejuvenate all of Rip City (a k a Portland).