Warriors at Trail Blazers
THE STORY: Portland is hanging on to playoff hopes by a thread or
- more appropriately - the hip of LaMarcus Aldridge. Aldridge did not
practice with the Blazers on Tuesday afternoon, instead traveling to
Vail, Colo., to have his sore hip examined. He is listed as questionable
for Wednesday's game against Golden State, which is essentially playing
for lottery position and coming off a horrible 123-84 loss at Denver on
Monday. The loss was the worst for the Warriors since a 129-89
thrashing at San Antonio on Dec. 4, 2006.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, CS Bay Area Plus (Golden State), WGW (Portland), ESPN3.com
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (22-34):
The numbers were awful all-around for the Warriors in Denver. They
trailed 37-13 after the first quarter, were outrebounded 60-27 and
outscored in the paint 70-18. “(Monday) was about as bad as we could
play as a team,” said David Lee, who shot 4 of 15 and scored 10 points,
15 shy of his average the past eight games. To make matters worse, the
Warriors have lost six of eight in Portland.
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (27-31): With eight games remaining, the
Blazers trail Denver (31-26) and Dallas (31-26) by 4 1 /2 games for the
final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Additionally, starting
small forward Nicolas Batum, who missed Monday's game because of
tendonitis in his left quad, could miss tonight’s game. A poll in the
Oregonian asking if Aldridge should be shut down for the season received
83 percent yes votes. Portland interim general manager Chad Buchanan
said he is not ruling out shutting down Aldridge.
BUZZER BEATERS:
1.
Golden State has not lost a season series to Portland since 2002-03,
but Portland leads 2-1 this season with Wednesday the final game.
2.
The Nuggets' 33-plus rebounding advantage matched the largest in the
NBA since Philadelphia outrebounded the Warriors by that many (59-26) on
Dec. 14, 2009.
3. Aldridge averaged 15.6 points all-time against the Warriors, his third-lowest mark against any opponent.