In this first-time post at Beyond The Beat, I turned the keyboard over to a Blazers die-hard - John Robison in Los Angeles - to get fresh thoughts from a fan on a season saving win by Portland in Game 5 ....

The Blazers start-of-the-season motto 15 = 16 has boiled down to 1 + 1 = 2 as the series heads back to Houston for Game 6 thanks to an 88-77 win in Game 5.

The theme of the night was redemption as we saw adjustments in almost every area where Portland took criticism after the two losses in Houston. Can LaMarcus Aldridge and Bradon Roy both turn in solid offensive games?

Can do – they led the Blazers in scoring. Can Portland get better play from our point guard you say? Steve Blake was solid down the stretch, hitting key free throws and taking the ball right though the heart of the Houston defense for late bucket.

Travis Outlaw needs to break out of his funk?  He had the most timely three-pointer of the game when Portland was fighting off the Rockets' strongest surge.

Can Coach Nate McMillan give us more Rudy? Can LaMarcus go to work on Luis Scola? Can Greg Oden play more than 10 minutes? Yes, Yes, and Yes (just barely but Oden had a string of stellar defensive plays, finally started looking comfortable on the block with Yao and hit a pair of free throws when we absolutely had to have them).

Even more important than individual performances was the emergence of solid team play. For the first time in this series Portland was able to dictate the way the game was played for significant stretches, leading Rick Adelman to lament that his team rushed their offense too often, taking shots that were not what they wanted. It was nice to see that shoe on the other foot.

Portland has focused so much attention on slowing Yao that it was having a ripple effect (with Joel Pryzbilla and Greg fighting Yao for position help defense and rebounding have to come from our other forward positions and everyone needs to work harder to prevent penetration and open looks). Hats off to Scola for taking advantage again in the first quarter but as the game wore on the Blazers did a much better job shutting down the lanes, contesting open shots and getting help on the defensive boards from Aldridge and Outlaw.

Now the onus is on the Rockets to take care of business at home.

“Tonight I don’t think we felt any pressure,” Aldridge said when asked if the pressure is back on Houston.

“We said let’s go out and just play and now going back to their place, they feel like they want to win it because they know if they come back here, we play better.”

This young Blazer team came into this year looking for answers to a myriad of different questions. Will Greg stay healthy? Can Brandon make the leap to super stardom? Is LaMarcus an elite power forward? Is it possible to win with Steve Blake at the point and so many rookies getting major minutes? So far the answers have been positive. And as Yao said after Game 2, this Blazer team learns quickly; however, at this point in the season only one question remains - can Portland win in Houston?

“I really can’t say. We haven’t won in their building, but hopefully we put the pressure back on them tonight. We just need to win one game at a time. That’s all we can do,” explained Brandon Roy.

After watching Portland continue to learn and improve throughout the series, I think the answer is up to them. It's time to see if they have some Round 2 swag  as 1+1 = 2.

John Robison is a manager at DreamHost.com in Brea, CA working behind  the Purple and Gold curtain doing everything he can to turn his son Gage away from the dark side (much to the chagrin of his father-in-law, a die hard Laker fan). So far so good as the kid knows the Blazer roster from top to bottom!

pic via: daylife

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