What’s your most overpowering thought about that, in conjunction with the Trail Blazers? Is it pride, that the Blazers were able to get a couple of games off the Suns and the Spurs were not?

Or is it anger that Portland couldn’t get past the Suns, knowing that the Spurs were so soft in the second round? Really, if Brandon Roy hadn’t gotten hurt late in the season, don’t you think Portland would have had a heck of a shot at knocking out Phoenix? That Roy we saw in the playoffs this season just wasn’t the same Brandon Roy we usually see, right?

I said it at the start of the playoffs, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a No. 6 seed get a draw in a bracket the way the Blazers did — with a season-series edge on all the teams it was likely to play all the way to the NBA Finals.

And by the way, do you expect Phoenix to be able to beat the Lakers?

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Paul Allen couldn’t have drawn up a better Western Conference bracket, if they would have handed him the chalk and the ability to seed his own tournament.

Can you imagine — a No. 6 seed that ends up having won the season series over ALL the other teams on its side of the conference bracket? Incredible.

If Brandon Roy didn’t have that injury, I would not hesitate to say to you that the Trail Blazers were going to get all the way to the Western Conference finals. In fact, even if they have to play without Roy I’m tempted. It’s a soft field on this side, folks.

And the news Wednesday night was that Roy is very likely to play during this series. He’s apparently doing better. Sure, without him, it’s going to be difficult. But the great thing about playing the Suns is that they can’t change much about the way they play. It’s not one of those teams that’s suddenly going to get tougher and more physical in the postseason — who is going to do that, Channing Frye?

The Suns will try to do what they do — force a tempo on you, play that dribble-drive offense with Steve Nash creating for himself and others and hit the offensive boards. But the Blazers dealt with that two out of three times this season and could have beaten the Suns in the third game. There is no way Portland is intimidated by this matchup.

Portland, as Nate McMillan said last night, “has a shot.” A good shot. And if the Blazers were to beat the Suns, the next round is possible, too. They’ve played very well against the Spurs and Mavs this season and I’d expect them to do it in the playoffs, too.

Combine that with the lack of pressure on them — hey, at this point with all the injuries they’re on a free pass — anything’s possible.

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Loved the Trail Blazer defense most of the game. They did a nice job stopping what the Spurs do best, ganged up nicely on Tim Duncan (who, by the way, isn’t moving a lot like Tim Duncan used to move) and after a slow start, held their own on the boards.

Loved the big play that resulted in Martell Webster’s open three-pointer that (should have) sealed the game. Andre Miller got great penetration, found Nic Batum in the corner, who didn’t hesitate in getting the ball to Webster, who had plenty of time to get his feet under him and settle into his three-pointer.

It was a smart play by smart players.

I didn’t like the misses at the foul line late. I expected more from Miller and LaMarcus Aldridge than that.

All in all, though, big game for the team to win against a Western Conference rival. A couple of other thoughts:

– The Spurs look so old and broken down. Their stars have so many miles on them.

– I think Batum is much more effective playing with Miller. His game is moving without the ball and Miller looks for him. I think, too, he’d fit better in a motion offense, rather than the standing-around stuff the Blazers do while watching pick-and-roll isolations.

– Huge game from Juwan Howard that was mostly overlooked by the media. He hasn’t made shots like that in a while.

– Brandon Roy needs to get back soon. I’m not sure how much longer the team is going to be able to hang on without him. Points are getting hard to come by.

– That may have been the Spurs’ A game last night. Not sure they have a whole lot left. They defend well at times, really well. But they can’t seem to do it consistently for the entire game. The energy just may not be there any more. Those guys have a lot of mileage on them from all those deep playoff runs.

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My buddy Ben over at Blazers Edge has a post today telling us that people even now (including Clyde Drexler) are saying they are. He adds some positive comments from John Hollinger, too.

I think it’s at least 50-50 that it will happen as early as this season. But I’m thinking that after this season, it’s surely going to happen. It seems to me that San Antonio has made the most positive moves this summer in the West — but that given the age and injury history of the Spurs’ key player, Tim Duncan, and the injury problems of Manu Ginobili, you can’t project them very far out. I will, though, give Gregg Popovich this season and say he’s going to have the Spurs nipping at the Lakers’ sneakers.

Dallas made some decent moves this summer, too, but its window is beginning to close and I’m not sure this bunch is ever going to overcome the memory of blowing that NBA title that Miami stole from them.

Denver? Well, perhaps George Karl can hold that circus together for one more season but I sense implosion will eventually occur. I am just not fond of the mix of players in Denver and I think there are selfish players there. Chauncey Billups is going to have his hands full trying to keep everyone happy about getting the ball enough.

Houston? A long shot to even make the playoffs now, without Yao and with Tracy McGrady questionable. It’s a shame a team can go from that good to that bad in such a short time. Phoenix is kind of the same story — the best player is aging, the rest of team full of question marks. Maybe, MAYBE, one more playoff run if Amare Stoudemire is healthy. But the long term future of the Suns is pretty cloudy.

One team that is on the rise, though, is Utah. If Trail Blazer fans are sitting around waiting for their young team to get better, I think Jazz fans are doing the same. If Utah can find a way to move Carlos Boozer and get value in return, you know Jerry Sloan is likely to milk a pretty good season out of the Jazz.

I also look for the Clippers to be much better this season and a probable playoff team. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy and they’re certainly not going to be a threat to the Lakers, but if you’ve seen anything of Blake Griffin, you know that he’s going to be an impact player.

Oklahoma City (it still pains me to write that name down as an NBA franchise holder) is going to be a factor very soon, too. I expect them to make a big leap in wins this upcoming season.

Overall, though, I think the West is slowly starting to regress back toward the East, which is getting better each year, thanks to a lot of high draft picks and the presence of superstars like D-Wade, Dwight Howard, LeBron and The Big Three in Boston. It always runs in cycles and I think we can see, out there on the horizon, the West’s cycle coming to an end.

I can see in a couple of seasons, the balance of power shifting eastward and by then, it’s going to be the Lakers and Trail Blazers kind of alone at the top in the West. Not sure, though, if the thinning of the conference talent helps Portland or not. That remains to be seen. Certainly it will lead to more gaudy won-loss records — which is a bigger deal than people think because of all those playoff homecourt advantages gained based on season record – even though it’s a league where nobody plays the same schedule.

I’ve not been sure all summer that the Trail Blazers would be able to improve much on those 54 wins of last season, just because they were so fortunate last year to win so many close games. Stat guys will tell you that over time, that’s not much due to skill as it is good fortune and that eventually, it evens out, even for the good teams. What the good teams do is win a lot of games by big margins — which the Trail Blazers will begin doing.

And now that I see the conference rapidly aging and the younger teams still not quite ready to step up another level, I think Portland actually does have a real chance to get up close to that 60-win level, assuming no major injuries, which, as we know is a major assumption.

Of course, it’s still early. Between now and late October there’s still time for Martell Webster to reinjure that foot, Greg Oden to step on someone’s ankle, the Clippers to lose two or three players to injury or for Ron Artest to do something stupid.

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Johnny Ludden at Yahoo sports has a nice piece with Gregg Popovich talking about the Spurs’ upgrades this summer. “Pop” talks about knowing that to stay competitive, the Spurs needed to add to their mix. And they knew, too, it was going to be expensive:

The Spurs will pay for that right. For years, the franchise had remained, in Popovich’s words, “frugal.” In those rare seasons when the Spurs crossed the luxury-tax threshold, they did so only modestly. This season, their $80 million payroll could rank among the five highest in the NBA. If it isn’t reduced by season’s end, they will pay close to another $10 million in tax – a stunning jump for one of the league’s smallest markets.

“We’ve always wanted to compete, and the environment in the NBA allowed a team like us to do so,” Popovich said. “If you wanted to work at having a shot at winning the championship and still be under the tax, it could be done.

“But the way the talent has shifted in the league, it’s almost impossible to do that now.”

Indeed, the gap between the haves and have-nots is expanding rapidly in the NBA. A league that has always prided itself on a salary-cap system that allowed all teams at least a chance to compete, is falling prey to the economy — where a great many of the small-market teams, or the teams with owners in failing outside businesses, are big sellers rather than buyers.

And the day is coming soon when Portland’s going to be facing big luxury-tax decisions, too. In the past, it hasn’t bothered Paul Allen one bit. It will be interesting to see, moving forward, if any of that has changed.

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Like the Los Angeles Lakers (Paul Gasol) and Denver Nuggets (Chauncey Billups), the San Antonio Spurs have managed to add a very good player to their roster (Richard Jefferson) without giving up much of anything but a little garage-sale junk from the basement.

Jefferson will help the Spurs a lot and San Antonio gave up three expendable players with expiring contracts, including Fabricio Oberto, who will probably — after a buyout — end up back with the Spurs.

This illustrates again that if teams in the NBA want to take on big contracts, they can get players for virtually free. I know the Bucks will sit back and tell their fans that they’re going to be in great shape after next season because of a lot of cap room, but it’s likely they won’t ever convince a free agent to go there anyway. I think such deals, long term, are bad for the NBA. It’s seemingly increasing the distance between the haves and have-nots.

But the Trail Blazers are supposed to be one of the haves. I know they had no interest in Jefferson because they’ve turned him down since last season’s trade deadline. But there must be somebody out there they really want and in this financial climate, I would expect them to add someone in a onesided trade. Seriously — it’s THE way to get better right now in the league.

Portland needs to take advantage of this situation while it exists. It’s the strong preying on the weak and the Blazers better be working toward their own private feast.

If good players are being given away by NBA teams, I expect the Trail Blazers to be up in front of that line. One warning, though — nobody knows what the salary cap is going to be yet and any trade involving a lot of cap space may not be possible for Portland until sometime in July.

That means we might see things in this draft that don’t make sense right away but will be clearer whenever that cap number is made clear.

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 You could see the ball still in Finley’s hands as the shot clock expired. The irate Kings were told that shot-clock calls were “non-reviewable.” I’m not saying Sacramento was going to win, but they sure weren’t after this call.

UPDATE: Mark Mason, in the comments, makes a great point. It appears the shot-clock horn is about a full second behind the clock. I believe he launched the shot prior to the horn… so you really can’t blame the officials for counting the shot. NBA rules, I believe, dictate, though that the clock is what matters — not the horn. So it should NOT have counted… but this shows you why they need replay because the officials almost have to go with the sound, rather than trying to watch the clock and the play at the same time. And they also need to get the clock synched up with the horn.

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Portland needs to get past Oklahoma City and then see what happens with San Antonio at Golden State, in a game that should end about 30 minutes after the Blazer-Thunder contest. If the Blazers win and the Spurs lose — and you just never know how the Warriors will play, even at home — Portland can relax Wednesday night against Denver in a game that could end up being relatively meaningless for both teams.

The big thing in the first round is getting matched up against the Spurs — even if you don’t have the home court. San Antonio needed a miserably bad call last night at Sacramento to beat the Kings, when a game-winning three-pointer by Michael Finley came after the shot clock expired but was counted, anyway. The Spurs deserved to lose that game.

Gregg Popovich knew he couldn’t play Tim Duncan in back-to-back games and chose to keep him out of the one at Sacramento. He came out of there with a win, a genius move as it turned out, and the Spurs should have Duncan on the floor tonight.

San Antonio just isn’t healthy enough to survive a first-round series against anybody and is staggering toward season’s end. But the Spurs finish the year with a home game against New Orleans, which will probably be locked into its playoff slot and not care about that game. The best chance of a Spurs’ defeat is probably tonight’s game.

If San Antonio can somehow win out, the Blazers must win out — and that starts with tonight’s game against the Thunder.

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Wednesday night’s triumph was a monster for the Trail Blazers. Hey, it was nothing like beating the Spurs with a healthy Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan, but it was a win at San Antonio on national TV with much at stake.

Great play off the bench again from just about everybody. And this was one time when being a young team was a great attribute. San Antonio shot its wad in the first quarter and didn’t have much left after that. Portland got better as the game went on.

It was sad to see Duncan dragging his sore knees up and down the court. Man, he’s in some serious pain. And the Spurs don’t have a lot left when he leaves the court. Just a week ago, I still figured a first-round matchup with the Spurs was something you wouldn’t want to mess with. But that was before Ginobili was ruled out and the true extent of Duncan’s knees was known.

Right now, San Antonio looks like a beautifully wrapped gift into the second round of the playoffs for anybody who finds the Spurs as their opening-round matchup. And that well could be the Blazers — just let the Rockets slip into third, finish fourth and hope the Spurs drop into the fifth spot.

That’s as good as it could get for the Trail Blazers.

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Greg Popovich has rested Tim Duncan on the second of back-to-back games often this year, but probably won’t do so tonight. Duncan went only 33 minutes last night in the Spurs’ win over Oklahoma City so he should have something in the tank for tonight.

If San Antonio can win, I believe it pretty much locks Portland out of the top half of the Western Conference bracket. With tough home games against the Lakers and Nuggets (unless the seedings are all settled and the Nuggets take it easy next week), the Blazers will have their hands full improving their positioning without winning this one.

Isn’t a game like this — second of back-to-backs for both teams, late in the season — an example of a case when having a young, deep team should pay off a little? Hard for me to imagine that Duncan and Tony Parker and some of the other San Antonio graybeards can be very fresh tonight.

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