First they were down, then they were out. Then they rallied around their misfortune, and now they are back, but with a new found confidence down the stretch.
The Portland Trail Blazers began the season as a team brimming with confidence, and by mid-January, they were a team starting a 37-year-old, 6' 11" Juwan Howard at center and had a coach that was going to go under the knife.
Things looked grim.
But even when their All-Star shooting guard was hampered and eventually sidelined with a nagging hamstring injury, they never quit. The national media picked them to be on the outside looking in when the playoffs started, but that was when everything started to come back together.
The teams' summer acquisition began to show why the team signed him, the team acquired a defensive leader in Marcus Camby, and Brandon Roy came back into action without missing a beat.
Not to mention that, arguably, the most important piece to the puzzle was Nicolas Batum returning and being inserted back into the starting lineup after October shoulder surgery.
After struggling with the ups and downs of February, the Trail Bla ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Ryan Virgin
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