Portland Trail Blazers Basketball Team

In the good news for the Houston Rockets, they just got out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. In the bad news, they now play, uh, a team to be named later since no one said a word about the Lakers afterward. So there was no bad news, at least Thursday night. "For so many years people said we couldn't get out of the first round," said Yao Ming after the Rockets ended their long One-And-Done Jinx, crushing the Portland Trail Blazers, 92-76, to take this first-round series, 4-2.

Blazermania never dies, it turns out, although it did have to go into hiding for all those years while the Portland Trail Blazers tried to find it and kill it.

Greg Oden: Wait till next year Blazermania, catch it and wait till next year. The Portland Trail Blazers' hopes of returning to contention were rescheduled Thursday with the announcement that prized rookie Greg Oden has been lost for the season.

Frank and Mary Gill's season tickets at the Rose Garden used to place them among the most coveted locations in the city: second row, Seats 7 and 8, about 25 feet from the middle of the court at every Portland Trail Blazer home game.

The boos came down hard and authoritatively when Rasheed Wallace's name was announced, for the moment disproving yet another part of Wallace's now-infamous interview.

Damon Stoudamire scored 21 points for Portland, and the Houston Rockets tied a franchise-record low by shooting only 29.5% in the Trail Blazers' 81-66 victory Tuesday night at Houston.

It's not a big deal. That's what most of the Golden State Warriors said. Just a little bit of temper, just a little posturing, just a little punching and shoving and taunting.

The Lakers weren't exactly ordinary against the Portland Trail Blazers. Let's just say they opened the playoffs with two rather uneven performances in two victories against their favorite postseason punching bags.