So I went over the "Dream Shake" today, in order to assess the Rocket's view of the upcoming game, and the general level of confidence amongst their fans. I don't know if there is just some other blog site their real fans use, or if I'm just spoiled from BEdge, but it's not a pretty picture.

The last fanpost was from 3 days ago. Usually BE posts are measured in hours not days. And the responses were few and usually not very pleasant. (Although, in all fairness, one poster was suggesting trading T Mac and Alston for Baron Davis and Zach Randolph, sigh.) In fact the only post that generated any juice at all was written by the webmaster from the Wizards site making a trade offer/suggestion.

Bottom line is, all things being equal, we have a lot of good energy in our community right now, and historically that has been a precursor to greatness. I like that on BlazersEdge I can make a totally stupid comment, and someone will joke, someone will skewer me, and someone will politely correct my mistake, while pointing me in a more enlightened direction.

And then the conversation will spin off onto tangents, and eventually a day later die off, as it is replaced with a more current and rational post.

It's easy to say that the Blazers have more to be hopeful about. We've been on the rise for awhile now, and we're all trying to decide how far it is to the summit. The Rockets have been rising and backsliding, watching their key players grow older and more weary, trying to tweak the lineup to get over the hump, or even reach the hump for that matter.

But that's a cop out. If the Rockets win this game, they will replace us in the 4th spot. That's home court advantage. That's HUGE in the playoffs. There should be a lot more interest in such a key game, yet as of now, they don't even have a Pre-Game analysis, (For Shame!).

If I were in the habit of hoping for their sake, I would hope that their real fans don't use the internet, or just don't frequent SB nation. But I'm not, so I'll say it's an indicator that we have all the karma in our corner going into this one. Now all we have to do is beat them in a 48 minute contest of throw a ball, through a ring, on a pole. I hear we're pretty good at that.

GO BLAZERS!!!