Rick’s Picks: The weekly Portland Trail Blazers all-stars

For what was quite an up and down week for Portland (see Friday’s article) there were, however, a few bright spots to make note of.

In this week’s basketball edition of Three All-Stars, I’ll take a look at three performances that defined Blazer basketball this week.

I tried to give the accolades to Blazer players who had good games en route to a victory but I couldn’t leave out Nicolas Batum‘s performance on Valentine’s Day, in what turned out to be a home massacre at the hands of the Washington Wizards.

With LaMarcus Aldridge going down early in the 1st quarter, someone needed to shoulder the load and Batum did just that. Scoring 33 points on 12-24 shooting, Nic also added 4 rebounds, and 1 each in the assist, steal and block categories.

In what was a less than lovely night for Portland on February 14th, Batum did his best to keep Portland competitive throughout. However, even 33 points wasn’t enough as Washington rolled 124-109.

This past Saturday night saw the return of All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge, from a sprained ankle, and he didn’t disappoint.

This Week's #1 Blazer - We couldn't leave out Batum's Valentine's Day game.

Logging 35 minutes, Aldridge was able to record a double-double with 19 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal. All of the Blazer faithful breathed a sigh of relief to see this kind of performance out of LA.

The biggest question of this week was how Portland would respond after getting throttled by Washington at home on Tuesday night.

Wednesday had them traveling to Golden State, a place where Portland often struggles, and they would be without their All-Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge.

All these details spelled inevitable defeat, but Crash had other plans.

Gerald Wallace dropped 24 points, on 6-13 from the field, including a perfect 4-4 from 3 point land, Wallace was easily the best performer for Portland in Oakland Wednesday night.

Wallace was also a perfect 8-8 from the charity stripe, and added 6 rebounds, 2 steals and a block helping Portland secure a victory against the Warriors.

Nicolas Batum with a filthy baseline dunk against the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night capped off a great week for the French wonder.

Video courtesy of YouTube channel: TheBlazersVideos

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