Blazers spank Thunder: Now the fun starts

Final game vs. Denver will be meaningful

By Kerry Eggers

The Portland Tribune, Apr 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

MICHAEL WORKMAN

Greg Oden dunks in the Trail Blazers' big win over Oklahoma City on Monday.

There wasn’t much mystery to the Trail Blazers’ 113-83 pantsing of Oklahoma City Monday night at the Rose Garden. The suspense starts now.

As Portland eyes its final game of the regular season — Wednesday night against Northwest Division rival Denver — playoff seeding in the Western Conference is still very much up for grabs.

The Los Angeles Lakers will be the No. 1 seed, but the possibility exists for a four-way tie for second between Portland, Denver, Houston and San Antonio.

If Portland, Houston and San Antonio all win on Wednesday, that is indeed what will happen. In that case, Houston would be No. 2, Denver No. 3, Portland No. 4 and San Antonio No. 5.

The Blazers (53-28) will be seed No. 3, 4 or 5. They can assure themselves of no worse than No. 4 — and a first-round homecourt date in the postseason — with a victory over Denver (54-27) on Wednesday.

The Nuggets can wrap up the No. 2 seed with a win over Portland or a Houston loss at Dallas Wednesday.

It’s all rather complicated, and the Trail Blazers are trying to keep their mind on basketball.

“It’s interesting, and sure, we think about it from time to time,” Portland point guard Steve Blake said. “But once you get to the arena, you focus on the game at hand. We’ll try to win the game against Denver and see what happens.”

Portland’s victory over hapless Oklahoma City (22-59) — its ninth win in the last 10 games — was a laugher almost from the start. The Blazers led 29-15 after one quarter and extended the margin to 62-31 at the half. The game was so out of control, the sellout crowd of 20,655 went to the “wave” in the third quarter.

There was loads of garbage time, and when Brandon Roy left for good with 5:20 to go in the third quarter, Portland’s margin was 77-44.

Only Travis Outlaw — pressed into the starting lineup when rookie Nicolas Batum was sent home with a flu bug — played more than 30 minutes. Roy scored 20 points in only 22 minutes.

“Our guys came out with a professional approach,” Portland coach Nate McMillan said. “We talked about not giving (Oklahoma City) any confidence from the start. We wanted to try to get our guys no more than two, three quarters of play. We were able to rest some guys.

“This was really good for us right now. We have some guys who need (rest), and we have some times who need time on the floor. I was able to get Brandon out of there pretty quickly.”

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