Well that was a nice little blast from the past, wasn't it? Brandon Roy was acting like the old Brandon Roy, at least for the night.Sure, it was little hard to watch Brandon Roy on the floor tonight. I kept thinking that at any moment, one of his legs would fall off at the knee. But luckily, that did not happen. It was just good to see him out there and involved after such a long time. And that shot he hit to force overtime? I could watch it a thousand times and never get sick of it. It was beautiful.
Due to the trade for Gerald Wallace, the Blazers only had nine players available to play. And Nic Batum was on a gimpy ankle for pretty much the entire second half. Which is why Roy played so many minutes in this game. Coach McMillan has said that Roy's limit is going to be 15 minutes per game, and he is going to stick to that. Except last night, of course. The team was short-handed, so the definitely needed him to play more.
Roy played 25 minutes last night. He scored 18 points and shot 7-14 from the field. Not too shabby. Aldridge added 24 points and 14 boards and had a monster game defensively. Andre Miller nearly got his first triple-double in who knows how long with 18 points, 9 boards and 9 assists.
The main thing about this game was that it was just damn good to see Brandon Roy have a reason to smile and have a totally awkward chest bump moment with Rudy Fernandez. After the game, seeing the crowd of reporters around B-Roy's locker, Wesley Matthews was heard shouting, "Brandon Roy must have scored some points!"
This morning, ESPN's Skip Bayless tweeted about Roy's performance last night. He said, "Brandon Roy has always had the clutch gene. Another big shot last nite. Beware the Blazers."
