Remembering Brandon Roy's 50-Point Game

As Basketball-Reference.com reminded us this morning, today marks the 7th anniversary of the only 50-point game in Brandon Roy's career.

On this day in 2008, Brandon Roy had his only career 50-point game https://t.co/lWEX9YRWxw #Blazers pic.twitter.com/g0lkX8J0uN

— Basketball Reference (@bball_ref) December 18, 2015

As you can see in the boxscore, Roy's outburst came against Shaquille O'Neal and the Phoenix Suns in a 124-119 Blazers victory. Portland's lineup included the titanic trio of Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Greg Oden. Future Trail Blazers center Robin Lopez, then a 20-year-old rookie, got 7 minutes off the bench for the Suns. Phoenix shot 57% for the game as Lopez was the only opponent the Blazers managed to stop (1-3, 33%).  But Roy's 52 points made up for a host of sins.

It's startling to look at the lineup differences for the two teams between 2008 and today. Phoenix started Shaq, Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash, Grant Hill, and Jason Richardson. Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez, Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake, and Joel Przybilla joined Portland's Big 3. How times have changed.

For your amusement and enjoyment, here are excerpts from the Blazer's Edge game recap from December 18th, 2008.

The Intro:

Oh...my...God. That was incredible. I'm warning you now, if you expect rational analysis of this game you're going to be disappointed. Oh, I have my usual copious notes but they only lasted until midway through the third quarter. Right about then my rational analyzer shut down for good and I got totally caught up in the game.

Brandon Roy just destroyed everything in his path. There's your rational analysis.

The Game Flow:

There's no way to describe what happened other than saying Portland was down by 12 in the third quarter and then all hell broke loose, plus a large dose of classic Drexler-era Blazer basketball. You must find video clips of this game...not highlights or isolated plays, the whole thing. Or at least everything from the six-minute mark in the third on.

Roy's Individual Notes:

If you didn't see what Brandon Roy did it's no good me telling you about it. The numbers, as awesome as they are, don't do it justice. He was every bit as good as Kobe Bryant on a good night out there. (Of course Kobe is Kobe consistently whereas this is a special occasion for Brandon. No overreaching hubris intended, L*kers fans. However our boy was M.V.P.-level tonight.) You ready? 52 points on 14-27 shooting, 5-7 from distance, 19-21 from the free throw line, with 6 assists and 5 rebounds. Phoenix just couldn't stop him from anywhere. He looked like he was playing against children. The all-time Blazer single-game scoring record is 54 by Damon Stoudamire. That tells you what kind of game this was.

Good times. Goooood times.

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Why not mark the occasion by helping send 2000 underprivileged kids to see the Blazers play the Sacramento Kings on March 28th? You can donate through this link:

http://www.rosequarter.com/blazersedge

Promo Code: BLAZERSEDGE

Ticket Costs range from $7-13 (There is a $5 processing fee per order.)

You can also call our ticket rep, Lisa Swan, directly at 503-963-3966. You will need to indicate to her that you are donating the tickets you order to Blazer's Edge Night.

--Dave blazersub@gmail.com / @DaveDeckard / @Blazersedge