The Blazers Are The New Nuggets; Kevin Love Breaks His Hand

Watching the Trail Blazers beat the Nuggets in last night’s preseason action, we could see a lot of similarities between this year’s Portland squad and last year’s Denver squad. The Blazers will be led by a quick and fearless point guard (Damian Lillard), they will feature a raw 7-foot prospect overflowing with potential (Meyers Leonard), and those two are flanked by a small army of bouncy athletes and grinders who will play D and run the floor. The Blazers also have something the Nuggets don’t have, and that’s a certified All-Star big man named LaMarcus Aldridge. Not to mention, Portland could have the same something-to-prove chip on their shoulder that Denver had last year, being in their first full season of rebuilding after cutting ties with a former franchise cornerstone (Greg Oden). Long story short, don’t be surprised if the 2012-13 Blazers follow the script of the ’11-12 Nuggets and become the scrappy, exciting team that may not have a huge superstar but will scare the hell out of their first-round playoff opponent … Aldridge had 14 points last night, Wesley Matthews scored 19, and Leonard added six points and a couple blocks off the bench. Leonard had the play of the game when he caught an alley-oop with one hand, took some contact from Wilson Chandler in mid-air and still spiked it. The kid is built like Triple H and he has hops — so why wasn’t he terrorizing all of college basketball at Illinois? It’ll be up to the Blazers’ coaches to unleash whatever beast might be inside of him … Line of the night from one of Portland’s announcers: “They wanted to make Anthony Carter a coach, because he’s older than most coaches.” … Coby Karl (11 pts, 5 asts) had a solid game for the Blazers against his dad’s team. If you’re George Karl, do you feel like a bad parent if you’re doing your job and trying to exploit your son’s weaknesses? … Nobody told Kenneth Faried it’s only preseason. His 17 points and 11 boards were all a result of just going harder than everybody else … Another team that might follow the Denver blueprint? The Raptors. They’ve got the point guard (Kyle Lowry) and the potentially amazing center (Jonas Valanciunas), and Andrea Bargnani is just a bigger, better version of Danilo Gallinari. Are they a playoff team in the East? They looked good enough last night. Lowry had 14 points, six dimes and three steals in a win over the Wizards, and Valanciunas had one play where he pump-faked Emeka Okafor back to UConn before throwing down maybe the hardest dunk Canada has seen since Vince … Washington had a chance to tie the game on their last possession, and gave the green light to rookie Brad Beal (11 pts). He got a decent look at a three-pointer, but Dominic McGuire blocked it … Keep reading to hear about Kevin Love’s latest setback …

Blake Griffin is in regular season form. He dropped 23 points as the Clippers beat the Jazz, making the highlight reel once by catching a lob from Chris Paul getting his head at rim-level for a two-hand dunk, then another time by finding DeAndre Jordan with his own alley-oop pass … The Jazz were down two in the final seconds when Randy Foye (he’s with Utah now) got a clear lane to the basket, but his layup got tossed into the crowd by Ryan Hollins. And that wasn’t even the best block of the game. Earlier, Jeremy Evans elevated about 14 feet and rejected a Ronny Turiaf jumper, then gathered the loose ball himself, took off downcourt and got even higher for a tomahawk dunk. On Ronny Turiaf. Rough night for that guy … Other stat lines from Wednesday: Jeremy Lin had seven points, 12 assists and four steals in Houston’s win over Memphis; Kyrie Irving scored 23 in Cleveland’s loss to Philly; Vince Carter had 15 points and seven rebounds as Dallas lost to Phoenix; and David Lee went for 16 points and 14 boards in Golden State’s win over Sacramento … The worst news of the day came out of Minnesota, where Kevin Love learned he’ll miss 6-8 weeks with a broken hand. Derrick Williams‘ fantasy owners might be stoked, but that’s about it. With Ricky Rubio already out until at least December and now Love getting injured, the Wolves just dropped way down the list of teams to follow on League Pass … The NBA is going to start enforcing a rule that was already on the books: Players will have 90 seconds from the end of pre-game introductions to be ready for tip-off, or they’ll get a delay-of-game warning. So LeBron‘s chalk routine, D-Wade‘s chin-ups on the rim, Kevin Garnett‘s headbutt on the basket support, all the pre-game hugs and dap, they could all be gone. (Though probably not, since players can still do whatever they want, they just have to speed it up.) We’ve heard a few media types applauding the announcement because they’ve become bored by the same routines every night, and former player Antonio Harvey was on the Blazers’ post-game show last night saying he likes the rule because he hates how players are friendly with each other before tip-off. But look at it from a fan’s perspective. A reporter who covers the Miami Heat dozens of times a year might be tired of LeBron’s chalk deal, but what about the fan who’s never been to an NBA game before? Or the fan who can only make it out to one or two games per season? Is it so terrible that those fans are entertained by the players they paid to see? As far as the hugs and dap, tell us again what’s wrong with athletes not hating each other? … We’re out like A-Rod

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