The Houston Rockets ended the Cinderella season for the Portland Trailblazers earlier this week with a 4-2 series win. And while the Trailblazers—a team with the youngest rotation in the playoffs this year—got burned in their final game the entire team learned a valuable lesson: good just isn’t good enough.
As the Blazers sift through the debris of their disappointing loss to Houston, their fans have a lot to look forward to. Brandon Roy has established himself as one of the finest players in the league. Ron Artest admitted that Roy is the toughest defensive assignment he has ever faced—harder to guard than LeBron and Kobe. LaMarcus Aldridge has blossomed into an inside-out threat, capable of taking over games; an All-Star nod isn’t far off. They have an impressively deep bench, matched perhaps only by the Lakers.
What they lacked was experience. They now know what it takes.
Brandon Roy in a post game interview with Blazer beat reporter Jason Quick showcased the drive that it will take to win a championship in the future: “The playoffs now are my grind. My grind for a championship,” Roy said. “Whatever needs to be done to get there I’m gonna do it.”
The playoffs were all this team hoped for this year. But it has become abundantly clear that next year the team will not settle for anything but a championship. It is an ethos that has to seep through the locker room. Roy himself admitted to settling.
In a post-game interview Roy said, “It’s like you have to psych yourself out to do it. Like this year, I think we set our goal as the playoffs, but I don’t think we psyched ourselves out to ‘Let’s win a championship.’ But you have to really mentally and physically gear up for that. That’s the grind I want to have and I want the team to have.”
So says the Blazers’ team leader. The blocks are in place for a championship season next year, it’s only a matter of whether they believe.
We still believe.
The future begins today.
