the game was great tonight, I had a hunch it was gonna go into overtime it didn't though so ya im not psychic o well. anyways here is my game recap.

first off: I was sitting in about the 7th row across from the blazer bench so that was cool.

now to the ballers:
juwan howard: I had to put this guy first cause well he did a lot of things that made me go "dude can still play a little." First off he played a ton so I had a lot to watch of him playing and I think its officially time for me to throw my hat into the "juwan howard for back up pf" camp. He was just solid, a couple post moves and some nifty passes, but nothing made me happier then his focus. which very clearly was get greg oden the ball. When greg was beasting(I will describe his awesomeness next) they were playing a bit of high low with juwan. he would catch the ball at the top of the key and his first look was right at greg, he was like jake delhomme looking at steve smith, u knew where it was going and he was going and if he couldn't get it there his first pass was to someone who could. real.veteran stuff

greg "biggest guy on the court" oden: I like to call him that because that is simply what he is. Like ben said he was having a throwback oden night until about 7 or 8 minutes left in the 4th then he went all kick but-take names. I also don't feel like the fouls were his fault to begin with. I counted really only 2 or 3 fouls that were his fault, most of it was just someone else's man beat them(badly) and oden decided to cover for then. the play he fouled out on he got offensive foul for "allegedly" elbowing k-mart, what really happened was he grazed k-mart with a elbow( there was no acting by k-mart either everyone in the building was confused on that call).
    Now back to the goods. again like been said those 5 or 6 minutes were probably the best of his bball career. he did everything: block shot check, rebounds check, offensive rebounds for put backs check, owning nene, birdman or k-mart big time check. it was amazing he was evolving right before our eyes. he gets his shot blocked from the weak side after a couple dribbles then hook, no problem next time he pump faked. then after a few possessions of a couple dribbles then hook or dunk he switches to the quick spin move for a dunk. It got to a point when Roy would just toss up the ball hoping it would go in cause he knew if it didn't Gregory had his back. I actually had a moment when oden fouled out that I thought "well who's gonna score for us now?" that was short lived cause Roy was on the court but the fact that I had that feeling for a split second shows how good he was. Start him now and never look back!

Brandon Roy: Was a bit off. Really that's all. He got a couple fouls early and never really recovered, but, like always, he was still the man at the end of the game. When oden fouled out branden and miller picked up when greg left off. He did hit one of his go to mid range jumpers, and got fouled so he's coming around. At one point I heard him say and 1 while going for a lay-up. the ref disagreed (which was odd because they called everything else). There is no need to lose faith he is still the real deal.

Andre Miller: Ya now that I look at it the numbers aren't very good, but trust me he is still the best pg on the team. He is a pro, that's all there is too it. I find myself wanting to call him sav's cause he is so savvy. At one point during the game my mom(very casual sports fan said) that new guy you told me about sure does talk a lot. I can remember multiple possessions that the blazers would be coming back down the court and someone like greg would be asking miller what he should be doing. we haven't had that kind of floor leader in a while. But you guys have already heard that so I will present a new point that makes andre great for this team. He gets it done all game. I can think of countless games were the blazers just didn't bring it in the second or third quarter like they do at the beginning and end. Well, during the third this game is when andre took over and kept portland a float. without him they never have a shot at the end. Also he is just fantastic on fast breaks. On that play in the game highlights that he passes to trout on the fastbreak was awesome. This is my train of thought during that play "man if there was some way that someone could get the ball to trout this could be a sweet play, but that's not gonna hap.... NICE PASS ANDRE!"

One more thing about andre. People seem to overlook how great of a teammate he is, or how much people seem to like playing with him. You may remember andre iggy tweeting about how much he is gonna miss not playing with andre anymore, well seemingly another I miss andre moment happened during the game. During warm up's at halftime Nene walked over to the blazers side and was greeted by andre and juwan. He didn't seem that interested in Juwan but he had a huge grin beaming right at andre with andre grinning right back. This wasn't just your average "hey we used to play together so what's up" moment this was genuine excitement to see someone. I don't care how cold andre is to the media his teammates usually love him and that seem way more important to me.

Nic Batum: He had a pretty mediocre game, and one of his patented fast break blocks( you could tell he was going to block it as soon as the steal happened because when there are two people in the open court with one of them being nic batum and he doesn't have the ball, someone is going to get blocked and because ty lawson is what 5"10' with no wingspan against nic's 6"8' and wingspan for miles, lawson had no chance). A girl sitting 2 spots down from me got very excited when nic came into the game, I mean very excited. Nic just has that effect on women. I felt bad for her boyfriend who was there with her, he tried to cheer along for nic I guess hoping that he was just some random player she took a liking to but deep down he knew that she would leave him for nic in a heartbeat.

Steve Blake: I just don't get steve. He has been playing basketball his whole life but he still can't figure out what to do on a fastbreak. On one example it was him, dre and someone else vs two nuggets. It should have been an easy 2 points but after passing to dre steve got in his way so that he could go to the 3 point line. That was an attack the basket break the whole way and steve blew it. luckly dre was savvy enough to hold things up and set up the offense. At this point steve is pressing trying to do what he's not good at becuase his shot wasn't falling and he wanted to show that he still has value. It's too bad this whole competition for starting pg might really mess steve up.

Joel Pryzbilla: One player who defenitly is not messed up by competition at his position is Joel. He was the same rebounding and shot blocking fool we are used  to seeing. The fact is oden should start but Joel needs to stay a big part of this team because he flat out brings it every night and no matter what the situation is. I could not be happier with the prospect of always having him or greg manning the paint.

Martell Webster: Marty wasn't at his best tonight. he still seems to be getting back into game shape and frankly he looks much thinner then I remember. His shot was a bit shaky tonight but that is only because with his form I expect the ball should go in everytime he shoots. He too got into early foul trouble but was still able to be part of the final group on the floor. He also had some epic battles with Carmelo trying to deny him position. On one play carmelo got an easy put back dunk but to me it seemed unintentoinal, like he was at the right place at the right time, because him and marty were getting so into and he just happened to look up and find the ball and himself wide open under the basket(after a big shove of marty).

Jerryd Bayless: Ya so he's probably not a point guard, but he didn't look bad at sg tonight. He will always be able to drive to the basket and find gold,  but it seems like his thought process is do I drive or just pass off and I'm fine with that. The fact is he is a great scoring guard that puts forth a great effort on defense. He is a great luxury for this team. His value may not be present now but if we have any injuries at the 1 or 2 we can sleep easy because he may be one of the best fort holders in the league. There won't be any need to push players back early or play through a minor injury because we have jerryd to plug the holes.

Funny little interaction between bayless and Kenyon Martin. So after jerryd drove past him twice, martin very clearly had some words for jerryd, and jerryd very clearly had some words back for martin. Fast forward to a couple plays later and Jerryd once again gets a layup on a semi-fastbreak play over, you guessed it, kenyon martin. You could see the a little frustration of k-marts face. I point this out because how many second year players do you know that would trash talk kenyon martin then go right back at him a few plays later?

Travis Outlaw: I saved trout for last because this was the player who's game I wanted to talk about the least. He was just plain bad tonight. He turned down by my count 4 open three's for more difficult shots(that he missed), wasn't boxing out anyone and if he got the ball on offense and had nobody to pass to within a couple feet, he just shot it. One thing that really stood out to me was how little he would go after rebounds, even while playing pf. The worste part about it was his man would still go for them forcing oden to have to block out at least 2 people all by himself. Making it look like he was giving up offensvie rebounds and I think causing him to foul at least once. I like travis, especially how he seems to keep everyone a little looser and I know with him you take the good with the bad so im not taking much from this performance, but I just hope he can find some consistancy or else I have to think he is gone by next season.

A few side notes:

- Overall this team seems to be more business during the intro. Normally they would jump up and back bump(is that what it's called?) travis after their name was announced. The only one that seemed to make an effort to do it was Roy, and I don't think their backs even touched. I haven't been to enough games the last few seasons to be an expert on this but it just felt off to me.

-I wonder sometimes if some of the guys that throw the girls up in the air originally tried to be professional wrestlers. I saw one wearing arm bands and smacking his arms in an attempt to pump up the crowd and it felt like I was watching wrestling. It was just for a split second but now I can't get the idea out of my head.

-these two girls sitting 2 rows in front of me spent the entire 1st half waving at someone in the stands eventually they got noticed, good for them(and what a waste of good seats)

-There was an older guy and his son(he was probably mid twenties) sitting behind me and the whole night the dad was spewing off inaccurate facts about the people playing. The son didn't really seem to care except for the big name players. I turned to correct them twice(not in a snobby way I swear) and the second time I got a pissy response from the son. It just seemed like the people in that area were not the friendliest, I think I should just stick to the nosebleeds.

-Lastly I know a few other people have posted their recaps of the game, and I'm sorry for adding to the clutter I just wanted to help paint a picture of the game because so many people weren't able to see it. This will be my first and last recap post.