Camby’s Big Night Helps Blazers Quiet Thunder, Maintain Sixth Spot In West

Portland, OR (Sports Network) – Without Brandon Roy, Portland turned to a pair of veterans to will out an important victory for playoff seeding, as Marcus Camby scored 30 points with 13 rebounds and Andre Miller added 22 points and seven assists in the Trail Blazers’ 103-95 victory over Oklahoma City.

Roy got bad news before the game, a diagnosis that revealed a partially torn meniscus in his right knee. He will rest for several days for determining whether or not he will play through the injury during the playoffs or have surgery that requires a four-to-six week recovery.

-LaMarcus Aldridge takes his time and drops in a jump hook over Jeff Green. “That’s your guy,” says Mike Rice.

-Serge Ibaka commits a foul, which brings in Nick Collison for Ibaka. The foul is big because Portland’s in the penalty. Marcus Camby was the guy fouled, but Mike Rice says that Martell Webster should step to the line instead, to try to fool the officials. Mike Rice, encouraging cheating since the Stone Age.

-Marcus Camby just tipped in a miss for his 24th point, then stripped the ball from Eric Maynor (a point guard!) and dove on the floor to recover the ball. Oh, and he just dunked for his 26th point, forcing a Scott Brooks timeout.

Mike Rice’s response? “He has 26 and 10? Ohhhh. Ohhhh. He’s our man. (long pause). If he can’t do it, no one can.”

-Foul trouble has helped, but credit OKC for holding LaMarcus Aldridge down all night. Jeff Green and Serge Ibaka have done their jobs.

-James Harden just hit an acrobatic layup over Juwan Howard to tie the game. He’s so underrated. I really wish Scott Brooks would trust him enough to play him over Thabo Sefolosha sometimes.

-My fed just cut out for a bit. Blame NBA League Pass.

-Big call here - Marcus Camby picked up his fourth foul pushing Serge Ibaka in the lane. Ibaka was probably camped in the lane for a bit too long, but it’s also not the worst call in the world as Mike Rice would have you believe. I say that as a fan of Serge Ibaka, and not as an objective observer, so take my opinion for what it is.

-With Brandon Roy and Greg Oden injured, the core of the Blazers is Andre Miller, Marcus Camby and LaMarcus Aldridge. Aldridge has done nothing tonight, because he’s been in foul trouble, but Camby and Miller have combined for 26 of Portland’s 43 points. Nice job by Portland’s young guys, or not.

-Jeff Green shuffled his feet very blatantly on a pump fake. It’s the second time he’s done it tonight. For all the talk about Green being the prototypical role player, he does a lot of dumb things on the court, whether it’s bad shots or obvious traveling violations. On the flip side, he plays great individual defense and has great on-court chemistry with Durant, so ... yeah, he’s interesting, like so many of OKC’s players.

-Portland really needs to work on getting back. After an Andre Miller air ball, the Thunder grab a rebound and pitch it ahead to Kevin Durant. No Blazer is back instead of Marcus Camby, who fouls Durant. This has happened a lot in this game.

-Miller misses a layup, the Thunder get out really quickly, and Durant gets another layup. OKC leads by 12. For a team that does such a great job of controlling tempo (30th in pace), Portland’s doing a shameful job in their transition defense. Someone needs to drop back whenever Miller drives to the basket.

-On second thought, Serge Ibaka fouled Howard. The Blazers announcers predictably beat down this fact.

-Eric Maynor was one hell of a find by the Thunder. They got him by keeping their cap space and finding a team willing to give away a good young player for cap relief. In this case, that was the Jazz, and Maynor’s been the backup PG they desperately need. He just made a great hesitation move on Howard and drew a foul.

-Subs are in for both teams - Eric Maynor, James Harden and Serge Ibaka for OKC, Jerryd Bayless, Juwan Howard, Martell Webster and Dante Cunningham for Portland. I find OKC’s subs interesting and Portland’s boring. In particular, I love Serge Ibaka. We need a nickname for him that’ll stick. I nominate “Iblock-A.” I stink at creating nicknames.

-On one end, Kevin Durant did the whole wrap-around move with his arms and drew the foul on Martell Webster. Juwan Howard tried to do the same thing on Serge Ibaka and failed. The Blazers announcers go crazy, which would make sense if Ibaka actually fouled Howard. The lesson, as always, is this: Juwan Howard cannot do what Kevin Durant does. Juwan Howard seems shocked by this fact.

-The Thunder are usually really good executing out of a timeout. This time, they run the “throw the ball to Kevin Durant and watch him hit an impossible contested three” play. It worked, as it always does. Bloggers and scribes will continue to praise Scott Brooks for his ability to draw up plays out of a timeout. It’s pretty easy to do when you have Durant.

-Is there a more underrated player in basketball than Nicolas Batum. Last year, he just stood in a corner on offense, but this year, he’s driving and making great plays around the rim. He just made a great drive and drop off to Marcus Camby for a dunk. The Blazers announcers celebrated this moment by nitpicking Batum’s ability to finish in the lane.

-The Blazers TV crew decided to interview an assistant coach about how big this game is. He gave mundane answers, just like a head coach. They will continue to do this to get “inside” access in the future. It will add nothing.

-Brandon Roy might be hurt, but Marcus Camby is excited. See, all is well, Blazers fans!

Howdy folks. I’m Mike Prada, and I’ll be providing live updates from tonight’s Thunder-Blazers game. It’s a big game, and yet, NBATV would rather show the Mavericks and the Clippers. Nice call, guys.

How do we know this game is big? There was a cool video montage to lead into Portland’s local broadcast, featuring highlights of the Blazers all season. I’ve seen several Blazers games and haven’t seen a montage like that before. Then again, I usually tune out the beginning.

Oklahoma City hosts Memphis in its regular season finale on Wednesday.

“It was definitely hostile out there,” Webster said. “That’s the kind of atmosphere that will be there in the playoffs. There’s a good chance we might be playing these guys in the first round.”