If I’d asked you last week which of these two teams would be on a two-game winning streak and which had lost two in a row, your answer would have come as quick as steady as the mighty Willamette after a hard spring rain.
No, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Minnesota Timberwolves are not having similar seasons. They don’t have similar talent. Their franchises don’t have the same expectations this year. And their focus for April, May, and June couldn’t be more different.
Yet it’s the humble Blazers who are riding high after taking two games in two nights in Tennessee, the second in overtime that led to Jabari Walker saying the free throws he hit to force the extra period were the biggest of his career.