Hungry Blazer Fans Pack the House
posted: 10/05/2009 at 9:25 AM
This has been said repeatedly since last night's event- there are a lot of NBA teams who would love to get close 16,500 fans to a regular-season game. Blazer fans, showing how starving they are to get a look at this team, bypassed a beautiful Sunday evening outside to flood the Rose Garden for the Wells Fargo Fan Fest.
This was a scrimmage, and a free event, but as we were getting set to go it felt very much like a regular-season game. There was a buzz in the air, and everything the players did during the warm-up time was cheered.
Because this is a general admission event, not everything runs like clockwork. There was a mad rush for seats when the doors opened at 5 o'clock, as expected. For the most part, things were orderly. But, when you're dealing with a crowd this large- unprecedented in terms of crowds for this event in previous years- it's going to get crazy.
A lot of fans told me this would be the only time this season they'd get to see the players in person, and that's what it's all about. There were an amazing amount of Blazer jerseys in the stands as well, and that's great to see.
The players were terrific in the pre-game interview period, as I fired questions to them. It's not terribly easy to speak into a microphone in front of nearly 17,000 fans, and it's certainly out of the comfort zone for some of the guys. But, I thought they did very well.
As for the scrimmage, Steve Blake was terrific and claimed the MVP honors. Andre Miller was very solid as well. Nicolas Batum is in mid-season form, and dropped in an easy 18 points. Greg Oden had a double-double in about 12 minutes (and that was with a running clock). Martell Webster missed a few opportunities, but looked very healthy, and that's the important thing. Rudy was Rudy, Brandon was Brandon. Juwon Howard probably surprised some people, but he's a 15-year vet, and rookie Dante Cunningham showed glimpses of what I've been talking about during training camp. LaMarcus Aldridge revealed his new sculptured pipes to the fans, and did his thing.
There wasn't a complete box score handed out after the game, but here are the rough stats. Pay attention to the assists, and keep in mind this was a scrimmage.
Black defeated White 79-70
Black Team-
Nicolas Batum (18 points, 3 assists)
LaMarcus Aldridge (13 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists)
Joel Przybilla (4 points, 7 rebounds)
Brandon Roy (5 points, 1 assist)
Steve Blake (17 points, 11 assists)
Jerryd Bayless (12 points, 3 steals)
Dante Cunningham (10 points, 4 rebounds)
White Team-
Martell Webster (9 points, 1 rebound)
Travis Outlaw (15 points, 7 rebounds)
Greg Oden (12 points, 12 rebounds)
Rudy Fernandez (4 points, 9 assists)
Andre Miller (12 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists)
Ime Udoka (11 points, 2 rebounds)
Juwan Howard (4 points, 4 assists)
Jarron Collins (3 points, 1 assist)
We return to the Blazers Radio Network, Comcast Sportsnet, and trailblazers.com tonight with another edition of Trail Blazers Courtside. The show starts at 6pm. Guests tonight include Nate McMillan, and Terry Porter and Brian Grant will appear in studio. There will likely be other guests as well, as we're always adding one or two right up to air time.
Talk to you then.
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I LOVE these guys!
good stuff are there any vids of the game? if not tomarrow ill see some agaist sac. its here guys its time for what we all have been waiting for.......dare i say
go blazers
Great time last night, I was impressed with everyone.
The one thing that I liked the most was seeing Travis jumping out of the gym for rebounds. Keep it up Travis !!
After seeing Oden last night, I feel sorry for Hawes.... NOT !!!
Bring on the Kings.
See you on courtside.
Go Blazers !!!!
Here's a link with the homemade box score.
http://www.bustabucket.com/images/stories/stats.jpg
Hey MB: thanx for the updates for the Blazer fans on the East Coast!!!
Mike: I just knew you were going to post a blog, but believe it or not I had to work.
I watched on Comcast and really enjoyed the game. I watched Greg to much and lost track of some of the other players, so thanks for the update.
Travis getting rebounds, Batuum going up and down the court scoring and playing d like slow moving water, so smooth. Anyway it was a great experience seeing all the players. I was rooting for the White and was disappointed when the black cought up. Then I remembered they were all Blazers.
See you tonight.
hg
Mike, or anybody else...
I havent heard a lot of buzz about Aldridge this year. Whats up with him? Has it looked like he has done any work on any particular parts of his game? Unfortunately, the only thing I've heard about him is his contract. Whats the news?
Well, sadly I went with a group of people - meaning I got there late and left early because the people I were with hate crowds. I don't blame them, it was annoying finally finding a seat and having people ask to squeeze through the aisles trying to find an open spot when there wasn't one, than 5 seconds later decided to go buy a refreshment or use the rest rooms - or find a new spot.
Other than that the game was wild. Martell looks ready - which like you said is very important and good. He missed a lot of dunks - yet he was also trying to "show-off" so I wouldn't worry much about that. Batum and Steve Blake were doing *GREAT* I think Steve will help Batum get some minutes, nearly every possession Steve seemed to look for Batum getting open near the rim. It was some great teamwork.
Andre Miller amazes me with how comfortable he looks with the ball. If he's our backup point guard - we have nothing to worry about. Bayless also seemed to improve on his shooting, I hope to see him get more playing time than last season.
Aldridge as well seemed to do good. He seemed to have gained more muscle and confidence in his shooting. He'll be an all-star this year, just you wait Blazer fans!
As for Oden - let's just say ITS GO TIME! He's worked on his positioning and ball control. He'll be a huge threat in the middle this year. I don't think he travelled once in his 12 minutes. Not to mention they went to him a lot, and he picked up a lot of impressive rebounds.
Travis Outlaw also had one beautiful put-back. I hope to see more of that from him and he'll earn himself a bunch of minutes.
The only thing I'm a bit worried about is Rudy - he seemed to miss a few wide open 3's. But he has amazed me before, I'm sure he can do it again.
It was a lot of fun watching the Blazers, and I can't wait until tomorrow to watch them destroy the Kings! It'll be nice to see Sergio again as well.
Great job on announcing yesterday Mike, I wish I could do that infront of 17,000 fans. Even those two 10 year olds had more guts than me! The white team one though needs to move the mic a little bit further from his mouth. He did great - he's got a lot of announcing talent in him, but sometimes it hurt the ears.
I gotta go to PCC for a class so I'll be missing courtside, but hopefully a friend of mine will be taping it for me to watch. I'm curious to hear from Nate.
Are there not any preseason games televised this year? If not, that's sad! I want to see these guys in action against other competition!
Mike-
I heard a report that Brandon played as few minutes as he did because he had a twinge in his hamstring. Is that true? Any update on that?
Everybody looked great. 'Dre's feed from the prone position to Martell for that baseline dunk was sick. Miller has incredible court vision, as evidenced by that play, and it was particularly uplifting to see Webster go at it with no apparent concern for his foot. Although he missed the slam, his drive down the lane to try to throw it down in taffic was special.
I'm surprised that with that type of draw for a scrimmage, the Blazers are not televising the pre-season games. Have they never heard of the laws of supply and demand? Oops, apparently not, or they would have gotten a deal done with the satellite companies by now.
I love this team. I want more, the city wants more, the state wants more.
RIPCITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I enjoyed watching the fanfest and can't wait for the game tonite!
Loved how active Webster was and Oden is obviously moving and playing much better than last year!
GO BLAZERS!!
It was a great evening for me to see the blazers all having fun. That makes the game better for everyone. I saw a lot of improvment in most of the players. I also saw that they were comfortable. Hey hg!! Nice to see your post again. Here we go!!! Oh yea. GOOOOOOOOOO BLAAAAAAAZZZZZEEEERRRSSSS
bs that none of the games are on tv. comcast continues to amaze me with lack of effort and willingness to keep going in the same direction with no signs of change. talk about a bad move selling the rights or whetever it was that paul did allowing them to get away with this. what is it 3 years of lies and bs. thanx paul
milltertime, you know what's really BS? That a friend of mine flaked on me and I can't go to the game! I ended up giving them away to the first person that posted they wanted them at the Blazers forum I post at. I was really looking forward to this game especially considering it wasn't going to be on tv! :(
On DwightJaynes.com Dwight has a post today stating that the NBA has decided that each team will be allowed to stream their games live, and that he had heard that the Blazers have decided to so. I know that this is only moderate good news, relative to your web access, for those of you that are still unable to watch the games.
I, after numerous complaints to the team, Comcast, and my satellite provider, actually moved last February because of my frustration of continually being unable to watch this team play. I am not saying it's possible or practicle, but I had to do what I had to do.
Unfortuneately, now I am locked into a lease with a Hitler-like landlord. You got to take the good with the bad, as they say, and I expect to see many good things happen this year. Hopefully the Blazers make it worth my while.
RIPCITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a fun night.....I took the wife and older kids we all had a blast. It was nice to see Patty there, too bad about his injury, he has a chance to be a nba player. GO looked great as advertised, it was nice to see him finish with his left, and had that been a real game he would have been at the line 15 times. I think he might be fouling out the other teams bigs this year. Marttell looked good, glad to see he still has his ups. Someone forgot to tell Steve it wasn't a real game he was playing hard. I was very impressed with Daunte's mid range game, he is solid. Its nice to see Ime back in a blazer colors. I've been playing with him since his jeff days (what a classy guy) Batum looked like a dear running the break, man that guy glides down the floor. It was also fun to see rudy running the point, is that a little foreshadowing going on......Miller is going to be a great addition....I hope blazers get out and run a little more this year, we sure have the players for a more uptempo game, I know how Nate likes to play efficient but i think we can push it a lot more this year......We had a great time, I can't wait to start the season.....
mfre1111:
It is good to be back. I still posted on Blazers edge, but this is the one.
hg
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