Christmas Day running diary

5:05 pm Here I am, sitting in the house I helped my parents build, on Christmas day, getting ready to watch the first Blazer game of this win streak. I just said “this” win streak, because I believe that the streak will continue tonight.

5:08 pm I love the stat they just showed. Portland is the best team on Christmas day all-time, and Seattle is the worst on Christmas all-time. While I was typing that the Blazers got three offensive rebounds and finally put their first points up.

5:10 pm Beautiful steal by Martell. It’s good to see him working hard like that. Now he needs to get both of these free throws. Nope, one-of-two. We need to start pushing it inside and stop relying on our poor jump shooting.

5:12 pm Just after I said that, Roy hit Przybilla for a nice dunk. It’s good to see the vanilla thrilla throwing it down like that.

5:15 pm Steve Blake is getting a lot of open looks and needs to start hitting those shots. And now the Blazers have given up the lead. They need to calm down a little bit.

5:16 pm Boom. Webster drills a three pointer off a kick out from Roy.

5:19 pm I just checked the Blazer station, but for some reason the picture n my parents’ new TV is way better on ESPN, so I’ll continue listening to these announcers instead of the Blazers guys.

5:21 pm Great pass by Channing Frye, good finish by Roy, but he can’t get the and-one. Fortunately the Sonics are terrible at rebounding and throw it out of bounds.

5:23 pm Jarrett Jack doing what he does well, driving to the hoop. And wow, Wally Szczerbiak just hit another three pointer. Thankfully Frye made a jumper. Other than the opening jitters, this has been better game than the Miami-Cleveland game this morning. That game was terrible. I expected that it would be, but still. Eww. The Lakers and Suns, on the other hand, played great basketball. That was fun to watch.

5:27 pm Did you see Roy juke Durant out of his shorts a few minutes ago? That was great. And then Brandn just rose up and put it through.

5:28 pm Sergio Rodriguez is looking good in his quick stint for Roy right now. El Mago making magic happen.

5:30 pm That first quarter wasn’t great, but 24 points for each team isn’t bad when we started so poorly.

5:32 pm Apparently there’s a new American Pie movie, and guess what: there are girls in it, and it’s about sex. Man, that sounds hilarious.

5:34 pm Jack just made another great drive. He is really good at that. And Travis Outlaw is great at shooting over anyone. He just elevated to drain that jumper.

5:36 pm WOW. Beautiful pass inside from Rodriguez to James Jones, and Jones THREW that down. As the announcers just noted, the second unit for this Portland team has been playing so well and they’re doing it again today.

5:38 pm That was a terrible call. They just called Jeff Green for the charge, but Channing Frye pushed him. Boo. Oh well, I’ll take it.

5:44 pm Jack has eight now, which is great, but Szczerbiak just hit another three.

5:45 pm Collison just completed the three point play to tie the game back up. This really does look like better basketball than the first game today.

5:48 pm Apparently Greg Oden had some sort of surgery on his knee before the season started. I also just found out that he’s supposed to be good. Man, just imagine what this team could be like with him back. (Oh, and Przybilla just made both free throws. He’s improved that aspect of his game so much.)

5:50 pm That was a terrible foul call. Przybilla played great defense on that, but they called him. Lame. The ball never lies, then Przybilla gets the rebound and gets fouled. That worked out.

5:53 pm Blake just missed another open jumper. Blech. Roy then comes back with a good drive-and-dish to Przybilla, but he was on the baseline. And now another terrible foul call when it should have been a travel.

5:57 pm Durant just made his first really pretty shot. That was nice. Of course, on his next play he traveled.

5:58 pm Blake finally hit a jumper. This one was behind the arc, where he has been shooting better than everywhere else on the floor.

6:00 pm Jarrett Jack is filling in nicely for Roy, who is in the locker room after getting hit with a Chris Wilcox elbow. We need to come out really strong in the second half.

6:02 pm At halftime we’re ahead by two, after having a pretty poor first half, so that’s not too bad.

6:06 pm Scott Van Pelt is a genius. “The Boston Three Party.” I love it. Although seeing Garnett, Pierce, and Allen do the Three Amigos salute was the best part of that commercial.

6:18 pm Red Bull is shameless. Geez. “Start with practice and work our way back to theory.” I’m sure that’s how my friend J-Lew studied biology in college.

6:21 pm Wow, Jon Barry just made two great jokes.

6:24 pm Ugh. This is a rough shooting game. R-O-U-G-H.

6:25 pm Jon Barry just made a joke about streaking and Will Ferrell in the movie Old School. This guy is culturally relevant.

6:26 pm Roy is starting to hit now. And there is LaMarcus Aldridge. Pretty basketball right there with that turnaround by LA.

6:30 pm There was a beautiful play by Roy and Przybilla, once again highlighting the progression of the big man’s offensive game this season.

6:31 pm FAST BREAK POINTS!! Portland has so much trouble getting those, it’s good whenever we can find some.

6:34 pm ESPN just showed a great stat: Portland didn’t have any field goals in the last five minutes, even though they just went up by ten. I think they had the wrong team there. Oh, and Roy is playing really well right now.

6:36 pm Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. (I think he must have just heard that he didn’t win his third consecutive western conference player of the week. He has 11 points in the quarter.)

6:41 pm The Sonics just made their first field goal in 12 attempts. Portland has been playing pretty good defense. And there Channing Frye knocks down another jumper.

6:43 pm Kevin Durant, everybody! He just tripped over the ball and himself. No ceiling, right Bill Simmons?

6:44 pm Durant just absolutely swatted a runner by Jack. I change the tone of my last comment: now it’s slightly less smarmy.

6:47 pm Sloppy play right there by Jack on defense.

6:48 pm Shades of old Travis Outlaw on his last ill-advised jumper and poor defense/foul on a Jeff green lay-up.

6:50 pm The second unit didn’t look as good at the end of that quarter, but they’re still up by eight. Brandon Roy was so good during the third quarter, and that was great to see.

6:54 pm Nice steal by El Mago to start the fourth quarter.

6:57 pm The Sonics are shooting well again, which is tough for us.

6:58 pm I’m really excited to see Roy come in and take over the fourth quarter, but it’s also nice to see Channing continue to make those mid-range jumpers.

7:04 pm Channing Frye just nailed another jumper. That is soooo good to see.

7:08 pm Jarrett Jack just took us shopping. It was fine until one of the announcers said that Jack is a “single male addicted to retail.” Yikes.

7:12 pm The Blazers are taking far too long with the ball, and waiting until the end of the shot clock. It’s making for some pretty ugly basketball right now.

7:16 pm I really don’t like this “wired” thing the NBA is doing now. It doesn’t really seem to add any insight, and it’s mainly just annoying.

7:18 pm It’s nice to see Jack having another good game. The same for Przybilla. He has 16 rebounds. Once again the team is getting it done by having various people step up well.

7:21 pm Well, we didn’t play that well again today. It is exciting that we keep winning when we’re not playing that well.

7:23 pm Neil Everett just said that the Blazers may never lose again. I’ll end this on that note...(merry Christmas)