TWBP: Living by the Three, Dying by the Three

It's time for another Token Weekly Blazers Post. This past week the Blazers went 2-2, so you get to see two more cards from the 50-card box that I got at a game I attended a couple of weeks ago. The week began with a frustrating loss to Golden State where it seemed like Portland was positioned to win their 4th game of the long 5-game road trip, only to come up short in the final minutes. The Blazers followed it up with two blowout victories over Chicago and Sacramento before falling to Phoenix last night.

It seems that while getting used to involving the post more in the offense with the addition of Greg Oden, Portland's become even more dependent on the inside-out game. If baskets are coming easily, like in the blowouts against inferior teams, there are plenty of wide open 3-point chances to take and Portland has plenty of players capable of making them. Unfortunately, as we saw last night with Phoenix, when the opponent plays a swarming and physical defense those wide open 3-point shots suddenly become a bit more contested and frequently missed. It seems like this team has taken a step forward where they are able to beat the teams they should, but they need more quality road wins like the Orlando win earlier in the year to solidify their playoff chances. For the record, I still think they have a decent chance of winning the division that everyone was ready to hand to Utah before the season started, but we'll see. Right now Portland sits one game back of both the Jazz and Denver.

About the cards:

• I love the Rasheed Wallace Ultra card. It used to be that, outside of regional issues, home court pictures of Blazers were hard to come by. I think most of the NBA photography in the early 90's happened at Madison Square Garden in New York, so we got to see a lot of black jerseys. Meanwhile, #30 is being retired later this season for Terry Porter and Bob Gross but not for good ol' Sheed here. Personally, Wallace is still one of my favorite Blazers of the past, but he got on the wrong side of the media (obviously) and has an incredible legacy of "bad ideas" in Portland.
• I fondly remember getting McDonalds cards with my Value Meal (#1) during lunches at high school. The Drexler card is one of those cards, and Clyde is my all-time favorite player period.
  

Bonus: This arrived in the mail one day for me, as an enticement to buy season tickets. Now one of my CD racks is uncomfortably familiar with Brandon Roy's face.