Portland Trailblazers show improvement

It is hard to believe the National Basketball Association (NBA) season is half way over already and the Portland Trailblazers reached the halfway point with a 16-25 record, just one game ahead of last year's mark of 15-26, but the attitude and work ethic of the team this season is totally different.

The Blazers are still a very young team, but the new players are playing well, and in that 41st game showed that heart and stayed with the hottest team in the league, the Phoenix Suns only losing by five, 106-101. It was the 12th win in a row for the Suns.

I'm impressed with this year's Blazers over lasts. Last year's squad gave up the second half of the season only winning six more games to finish as the worst team in the league at 21-61. I am sticking by my prediction that this team can still have a winning season with 42 wins. They just need to go 26-15 the second half of the season and Coach Nate McMillian should give the team that goal, it is still possible. The Blazers lost five games by four-points or less in the first half of the season, if they had won those they would be only one game under .500 at 20-21 now. The Blazers wins have been pretty evenly balanced with a 9-12 home record and 7-13 on the road. A losing record at home is not acceptable. The team needs to reestablish its home court dominance and home court advantage. This is a fun team to watch and the crowd will get behind them and reward them for their hustle and enthusiastic play. They need to start a home win-streak. They have won two of their last three at home, which is a start.

Zach Randolph is leading the team with all-star caliber numbers. He is the 13th leading scorer in the league, averaging 23.8 points per game (ppg), 10th in the league in rebounding averaging 10.2 per game, 1.9 assists and 0.7 steals per game.

Brandon Roy has made the biggest impact among the rookies so far as the second leading scorer at 14.1 ppg, 4.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.2 steals. The team was clicking with him in the lineup to start the season as they got off to a 3-2 start before he went down with a heel injury that kept him out for 20-games. He was the Blazers Christmas present as Roy returned to the starting lineup on December 26th at Phoenix, but the Blazers are just 4-10 since his return as he tries to get back into the swing of things.

Some of the losing record can be attributed to the Blazers being injury prone. Joel Przybilla missed 13 games, and all the expectations of free agent Raef LaFrentz has not materialized as he has only played in 12 games as a Blazer. Darius Miles had season-ending right knee surgery on November 9th and has not played at all this season. This has been a blessing in disguise as he is currently the only bad egg on the team to mess up team chemistry. Without him playing the team is developing good team chemestry and developing a winning attitude under Coach Nate McMillan and playing well together.

Jarrett Jack is the other Blazer averaging in double figure scoring at 12.4 ppg, 2.4 rebounds, leads the team in assists at 5.6 per game, and is tied with Roy at 1.2 steals per game, as one of only three Blazers averaging over one steal a game. Juan Dixon at 9.4 ppg, and Travis Outlaw at 9.3 ppg, are just under double-figure points-per game.

The goal of this year's team was to improve outside shooting. Through the first half of the season the Blazers are averaging five 3-point baskets per game (tied for 22nd in the league out of 30 teams), and shooting 32.5 percent from three point range (25th in the league). The team could use another high scorer like a Jason Kidd or Vince Carter as the Blazers are averaging just 92.4 ppg (28th in the league), but shooting a respectable 44.8 field goal percentage per game (tied for 22nd). The Blazers still need to work on their team defense as they give up 96.9 ppg (11th), but 4.5 points more than they score. The Blazers only outrebound their opponent 38.4 to 37.6, overall they rank 28th in rebounding. This used to be a strong point for the Blazers as they always ranked in the top five teams. The team averages 6.8 steals per game, which is usually a strong point for a young team with quick hands, ranking them 19th in the league. The Blazer big men are doing a good job in the block department averaging 4.9 per game for a tie for 13th in the league.

Martell Webster leads the Blazers in 3-point shooting hitting 39.6 percent. Local boy Ime Udoka has had a good first half of the season. He is second on the team in 3-point percentage hitting 37.2 percent, averaging 8.6 ppg, 3.6 rebounds, 1.4 assists and is the other Blazer averaging 1 steal per game. In mid-December Udoka played a key role as the Blazers put together a five-game win streak, their longest of the season, to pull their record up to 12-14, including wins over the Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets. Udoka scored in double-figures in four of the five games averaging 12 ppg, 4.2 rebounds, 1.6 steals, including a season-high four steals in the 89-87 home win over Houston, December 20th; averaged 2 three-pointers a game, including 3-for-3 in the home win over the Clippers, 109-99 December 15th. He scored a season-high 15 points in the win at Memphis, 85-79 December 13th.

During the five-game win streak, three of the five wins came on a six-game road trip in which they went 4-2, including a win at Detroit, 88-85, December 5th, lead by Randolph with 31 points in his homecoming.

While other teams have had on-the-court brawls, the Blazers stayed pretty much incident-free, except for December 8th at Indianapolis, when a frustrated Zach Randolph flipped off his home crowd (he is from Marion, Indiana) with just 15 seconds left in the game for fouling out. The Blazers lost the game 108-95 and Randolph has 29 points before fouling out. He did apologize after the game and said it won't happen again. It was the low point of the season for the Blazers as they lost seven of eight to drop to 7-14, but then they reeled off their five-straight.

The Blazers kind of peaked at the one-third point of the season at 12-14 as they haven't been that close to .500 since, with a lot of young players not used to the grind of an 82-game season, young players usually hit a wall around the 26-28 game point the length of an average college basketball season. 2007 hasn't been too good to them so far as they are just 3-7 and 4-11 since ending the five-game win streak, but they have hit a tougher point in their schedule too, but I can't make excuses for them.

The Blazers have proven they can compete with the best in the league and win on any given night, they just need to develop consistency. In the second half of the season, the goal should be to win at least three out of every five games as long as they stay healthy this should be possible and 42 wins isn't out of the question.