Tonight at the Rose Garden, you’re going to be looking at a veteran team fighting for its playoff life. And its heart is barely beating. The Suns come in needing this one bad. Real bad.

And even though Phoenix played last night at home, I expect the Suns to bring full effort to this game. If they lose, they’re in deep trouble.

The Blazers, on the other hand, don’t need the game quite as badly, but they need it. You don’t want to lose back-to-back games at home and more important, you want to put the Suns in your rearview mirror right here and now. Bury them. If you don’t, it’s going to be like one of those zombie flicks, where these guys keep getting out of the coffin and coming at you for the rest of the season.

For the Blazers, it’s actually pretty simple: Take care of the ball, run when the opportunity presents itself and make the Suns defend, something they don’t do well. Make them work hard at the defensive end and you’ll see the effects of the back-to-back thing. At the other end, do not leave their outside shooters open. Don’t give up open threes and deny penetration.

Simple? If the Blazers win this game, the playoffs a virtual lock. Lose it and the odds will still say the playoffs are there – but it becomes a lot tougher deal.

Tweet This Post

A couple of common things I hear that need to be addressed:

– The Blazers will probably make the playoffs.

Uh, do you think? Come on folks, wake up! For weeks they’ve been a shoo-in. Right now, they have six fewer losses than Phoenix with a handful of games to play. If they blow it now it will be the greatest collapse since, well, since forever.

– Making the playoffs was the goal. To expect this young team to win a playoff series is a little much.

Baloney. The Trail Blazer talent level is plenty good enough for them to at least make a good run at winning a series. I’m not convinced that the talent on the rosters in Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Utah or Denver is better than Portland’s. It’s right and proper to expect them to do OK in the first round, depending on who they play. To be happy with just getting there is almost like a prearranged excuse for failure.

– The Blazers need a lockdown defender at the point who can handle Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Tony Parker.

Of course they do. But so does everybody else. Folks, with today’s rules in the NBA (they won’t let you hand-check the guards any more), nobody is locking down the good point guards. Penetrations are impossible to stop individually — it takes better team defense than ever before. The teams stopping dribble penetration these days do it with great help defense and rotations. They don’t do it individually.

Tweet This Post