As I already predicted the Blazers will go 11-3 in December, showing the NBA they are for real. Here are my reasons:

December 11-3

1) December is where this team will make its first run. It starts off with 5 game road trip that will take 8 days, but with games against the Knicks, and Wizards as well as a big hyped up game against Boston, I think this team will be up to the challenge. Still a record of 2 and 3 on this trip is still very good.

2) After that trip the team has basically a really long home stand. 8 of their last 10 games are at home with trips to only Utah and Denver. All of them are winninable games.

3) 11 of the 14 games are against playoff teams from last year, but here is the catch. Those teams are: The Wizards, Celtics x2, Raptors x2, Denver x2, Magic, Jazz, Suns and Mavs. Of those teams only the Celtics have a talent advantage over the Blazers. The teams they play twice are home and home series, and 5 of those games are against teams that are fading, not on the rise or in their prime.

@ NY………….W
@ WASH……W
@ BOS……….L
@ TOR………L
ORL…………..W
@ UTAH…….L
CLIPPERS…W
SAC……………W
PHX……………W
@ DEN………L
DEN…………..W
DALLAS……..W
TOR……………W
BOSTON…….W

10-4?

The game at Toronto is definitely a bit of a trap. If you catch the Raptors on a hot game in front of their relatively rabid home crowd, that’s a hard game to win. Combine that with it being the end of a long road trip right after the Boston game, I think that’s going to be VERY tough to win.

I also think Portland won’t win both against Boston or Denver. They’re just too good and have too much to play for to get swept in the two games.

Every other game is winnable. But I’m slightly pessimistic. I think 7 or 8 wins is probably what we’ll see.

Much easier, in my opinion, once we get past this road trip.

The advantage that being at home gives this team is HUGE, near the top of the League. Unless we totally collapse on this road trip, we will be favored to win all of those home games except Boston and MAYBE Phoenix—but we can hang with Phoenix at home, we did last year. Utah on the road is tough, but we’ve already lost one to them, and we are absolutely capable of beating them on the road—as we did last year, with no LMA. Same with at Denver—we beat them in Denver last year in December, and we can do it again this year.

We are 7-0 at home with a scoring margin of +8.7, including underperformaces against bad teams like Minnesota and Sacto. We should expect to win every home game except those against elite competition, of LA, Boston, and Cleveland—and we should expect to compete in those.

I say 11 wins is realistic. Worse than 11 or 10 wins is not “realistic”—it is safe. To me, it’d be ignoring the body of work so far, or speculating that the team will regress.

I don’t think that will happen… though they could struggle through a tough month and still be just fine, and I’ll still be ecstatic if they ended up .500, but to expect a record like that is out of touch with the reality of what they have done this season, at least that’s how I see it.

There will probably be a couple suprises in both the should win games and the mild let that one slip away.

I want those divisional games badly,,,,,,,,,,,,,sweep.

ooopps

The first back-to-back game is against the not-good Wizards, who also will have played the night before. So not bad.

Our second back to back come home, which helps us, and against the Clippers, ditto. And it ends a stretch with lots of rest; it will be our fourth game in eight days.

The final back-to-back also come at The Rose Garden and against a Denver team that will have played the night before, too—against us.

Our home game against Boston will be their fourth game in six days; that helps us. They will definitely focus on getting the needed wins against GS and Sacramento after their likely loss to the Lakers opening their series.

A home sweep looks realistic, but perhaps you allow for the inevitable, and give us 7-1.

Road wins against New York and Washington, and a third road win against Toronto, Utah or Denver: 3-3 on the road, 10-4. Allow for one other disappointment, and you’re still 9-5, 21-11 overall with the hardest part of the season behind us and 50-plus wins looking not just realistic, but more likely than not.

That’s assuming our men follow current form, but they are more likely to step up than to plateau. It also assumes decent health, but health is the X factor for every Blazer opponent, too, and our relative depth compared to almost every other team means that this X factor will usually favor us. LeMarcus and Roy are not truly replaceable with our current roster, but everyone else is backed up nicely, with Webster actually giving us a bonafide three deep at both forwards (Lemarcus, Channing and Travis at the 4, Nicolas, Martell, Travis and Brandon in a pinch at the 3. And who knows, an injury at point guard might reveal that Jerryd deserves at least 15 minutes a games. . .)

At the beginning of the season, not even considering Batum and Pryz, who’ve been surprise, I thought 33-8 at home, 18-23 on the road, 51-31. That’s looking much better than it did after game four. . .

This is the type of poll that suggests most people on the site are realistic, if being cautiously optimistic, or just cautious. 8-10 wins is very realistic.

7 would be a little low and disappointing (nothing more), and more than 10 isn’t realistic, but would be very exciting.

I think December is going to be a very good month for our Blazers, however, I think there may be a let down or two. Although, I am saying 10 wins. The losses will come to Washington (let down), Phoenix, Denver (Home game loss), and Boston (our second home game loss). I think that these losses will be close (within 10 points) but they will be coming from behind and that first loss against Washington will be coming after a large win in NYC. Blazers get through December with a winning record and 2009 will be a fun time for all of us.