is still undetermined<\/a> for the third contest. He suffered a head injury in Game 2 and is progressing through league-mandated concussion protocols before being cleared for action.<\/p>\nThe return to friendly territory and the potential absence of Wembanyama open up possibilities for Portland that seemed remote when the series started in this 7-seed versus 2-seed matchup. A few Blazer\u2019s Edge Readers have mused on those possibilities in questions submitted to the Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag. Like this one:<\/p>\n
If Wembanyama is out does that give the Blazers a way to win the series? I can\u2019t believe how unexpected that would be but I can\u2019t help hoping too. Do you see us winning? Tell me there\u2019s a chance.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always a chance. The longer Wemby is out, the greater that chance becomes, of course. Even a minutes restriction or having him second-guessing himself would help.<\/p>\n
It seems morbid and cruel to root for injuries, though, so I don\u2019t want to hit on that point too hard. Let\u2019s hope he\u2019s OK as a human being and an athlete first, then worry about the implications. Concussions are serious business and are additive over time. Be decent. Be kind. Wish him nothing but the best. The goal isn\u2019t to have your team win because of misfortune to the opponent. (Though all teams will take what comes in that vein.) The real aim is to be able to beat opponents no matter what happens. That\u2019s the ultimate definition of a champion.<\/p>\n
As far as the Blazers go, look\u2026we\u2019ve seen them all season long. We know they\u2019re capable of winning amazing games. We know they\u2019re capable of losing to anyone, anywhere, for any reason too. I wouldn\u2019t worry about winning the series at all just yet. I\u2019d worry more about Game 3.<\/p>\n
The potential to regard an opponent as \u201ceasy\u201d and slip into overconfidence is strong. The Spurs, themselves, may have done that in Game 2 after developing a large fourth-quarter lead. It\u2019s a disease for young teams, of which the Blazers are one. It wouldn\u2019t be surprising at all to watch the team assume they\u2019re going to get a win over a Wembanyama-free San Antonio squad, then get their butts kicked. They\u2019ve lost to the Spurs without Wemby before.<\/p>\n
The complexity increases when you consider that the Blazers naturally fall into volume three-point shooting. If Wembanyama is out, they need to attack the lane like a $12 sushi buffet. Just keep going back until you can\u2019t stands no more. Whether they have the discipline to do that remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
On paper, the new-look, late-blossoming Blazers should have a good chance of winning any game Wemby misses. In practice, it doesn\u2019t feel anywhere close to an automatic victory. They\u2019re carrying too much baggage, overcoming too much inexperience, fighting offensive inertia too hard to feel easy about even the next game, let alone three of the next five.<\/p>\n
It would not surprise me to see Portland drop Game 3. If they win, it wouldn\u2019t shock me to see them lose Game 4 after. I will be mildly surprised if either team wins two straight. My guess is that the series goes back to San Antonio tied at 2-2. That\u2019s assuming Wembanyama doesn\u2019t play (or doesn\u2019t play at full strength) in one or both of the upcoming Portland games. If he\u2019s fully healthy, the Spurs are capable of sweeping in the Moda Center. It just doesn\u2019t seem like he will be at this point.<\/p>\n
I have no crystal ball, of course. Maybe I\u2019ll get surprised and someone will be up 3-1 after Sunday\u2019s game. If so, let\u2019s hope that\u2019s Portland! It\u2019d be fun to see the Spurs\u2019 response when someone puts their backs against the wall. They\u2019re a young team too, hardly invulnerable.<\/p>\n
In any case, since your guess is as good as mine, we\u2019ll open this question to all of our audience\u2026even those curious fans from Pounding the Rock<\/a> hopping over to see what the other side is talking about. Who wins Game 3 between the Blazers and Spurs and why do you think so? Share your prediction in the comments section below.<\/p>\nThanks for the question too! If you send yours to blazersub@gmail.com we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs are tied 1-1 in their best-of-seven, first-round series in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,46315,51192,85],"class_list":["post-627531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-blazers-analysis","tag-blazers-mailbags","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}