The Portland Trail Blazers will try to get back on track this season when they take on the Phoenix
Suns tonight at home. This will be the second contest between these two seasons with the Phoenix Suns winning the first game only a couple weeks back on January 21st. There are a couple differences tonight from that game, though.
The Blazers have two of their starters in their lineup tonight who were unavailable in the first contest because of injury: LaMarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez. In that game, the Suns players found their way into the lane and scored with ease because there was an obvious lack of rim protection from the Portland Trail Blazers. Dorell Wright and Chris Kaman were the two starting big men for the Trail Blazers that night and it is safe to say that neither of them can dominate defensively on the block.
Portland has been struggling lately. They are 3-8 in their last 11 games and are slowly falling down in the Western Conference playoff picture. The Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans are two teams outside the playoffs right now who are playing incredible basketball and are looking to add themselves into the picture. If Portland does not get their act together soon, they could easily fall outside the top 8 in the West.
The Phoenix Suns are what I like to call an inconsistently consistent team. This year they continue to go on little streaks. One week it will be a long winning streak and the next it will be a lengthy losing streak. November 26th was the last time that the Suns did not either lose two in a row or win two in a row. If you are a bit confused by what I mean, take a look at their schedule here. The Suns currently hold a 2 game losing streak and really need to win tonight to gain some space from the Pelicans and Thunder.
Both teams need a win tonight in this key match-up, but we will see who wants it more.
Key Player Match-up
Damian Lillard vs. Eric Bledsoe
Back on January 21st, Eric Bledsoe scored a career-high 33 points and also had 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Bledsoe has had Lillard’s number in his career, going 6-2 against the starting point guard in his career. These are the following stats for these two players head to head and keep in mind that Bledsoe’s first 5 games against Lillard were when he was on the Clippers and coming off the bench behind Chris Paul.
Eric Bledsoe: 17.6 points 5.8 rebounds 4.3 assists per game while shooting 46.7% from the field in 31.5 MPG
Damian Lillard: 18.0 points 2.4 rebounds 5.3 assists per game while shooting 38.3% from the field in 39.0 MPG
Basketball Society 