And In This Corner...Joel Pryzbilla!

and what you already see is what you get. He won’t be rough for kicks, but he will escalate if someone is doing it to him or the team. I think he has that pick up game sense of justice. “Sure, you can play rough, but then I will too.”

He is such a hardworking player with such an average guy demeanor I don’t see him as having the overblown attitude problem of people like KG. If someone punched Rudy in the face though, you can bet he will be just waiting to obviously show them how it feels to hit the ground head first.

I like what you’re trying to say in your post. And I can respect having players who don’t back down from the bullies of the court. However, I have no desire for such bullies on our team who would do such things as you mention in your last sentence. Giving a hard foul to stop a scoring drive is one thing but purposely trying to injure another player for the sake of injuring… No, I can’t and won’t respect that from anybody.

That Greg gets seriously pissed. Like KG takes a shot at LA, then Greg chokeslams him.

We know Joel can handle haters on the other team. It seems like there’s at least one, sometimes two, players on EVERY other team in the league that hate Ghostface for whatever reason. It’s something he has to deal with game in and game out. So he’ll be fine dealing with any verbal warfare delivered by KG.

If you look at the Celtics roster, then you’d come to the conclusion that this is the kind of team Greg should dominate. There’s nobody with the size to bang with him. Also outside of KG, they don’t have anyone of even remotely close size that has more talent than Greg. But I do worry about how he’ll handle the Celtics’ “veteran” tactics. You have to be mentally tough to play against and beat a team like Boston. Greg’s mindset appears to be getting better, but this appears to be a different animal than what he’s seen before.

If Greg finds a way to be solid contributor in this game, it will go a long way towards his overall development this season.

I don’t think the team needs Greg to give hard fouls and tough stuff like that …. I think the team just needs his physical interior play so that the Blazers can compete with Boston. Don’t let Perkins and KG dominate the middle. His rebounding will be particularly important, also providing a threat offensively near the rim so that his man can’t help off of him.

They struggled last year with toughness inside because once Joel went out, they didn’t have a tough rebounder/defender. That has been solved by having Oden in when Joel is out. The toughness extens 48 minutes this year.

The other stuff, standing up to bullies, is being handled too. LaMarcus and Outlaw got in Odom’s face last year when he fouled Roy hard. Joel doesn’t back down in any situation. Roy stuck up for himself against West and earlier this year when Roy got pushed in the back by, I can’t remember who…Stephen Jackson? Matt Barnes?…Frye stepped in and cut him off from Brandon in seconds.

As they have gained confidence in their play on the court, they have stepped up to defend themselves and especially Brandon more and more.