Blazers remaining games

With ten games to go in the NBA season the Portland Trail Blazers stand at 43-29 and in a virtual tie with the San Antonio Spurs. As mentioned on the show a couple weeks ago the number the Blazers should be looking for is 49, as in 49 wins to end the regular season. Looking at the competition and remaining schedule, 49 wins should put the Blazers in the 6th or 7th spot, and hopefully a match up with the Dallas Mavericks, a hope that was cemented last night.

Blazers remaining schedule:
At New Orleans
At Oklahoma City
Vs New York
At Denver
At Sacramento
At LA Clippers
Vs Dallas
At LA Lakers
Vs Oklahoma City
Vs Golden State

The Blazers need to go 6-4 to reach the 49 win mark. Going 6-4 in 10 games should be achievable for a team 14 games over .500. However there aren’t 6 gimmie games remaining. They SHOULD win the games against, New Orleans, New York, Sacramento, Clippers and Golden State. That’s 5. Could they pull a 6th out of the remaining 5 games? Sure. But let’s forget about the 49 wins for a second, if this team wants to be considered a serious threat once the playoffs start then they need to go on a tear entering the playoffs, think last year.

1. No losing the above five games that the Blazers SHOULD win.
2. Must take 2 out of the 3 remaining games against division opponents. Two against OKC and one against Denver.
3. No giving up games late.

If the Blazers can follow these three objectives, coupled with last years experience and the addition of veteran toughness, we could see a nice playoff run this year.

Derek