Tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET the Portland Trailblazers (8-2) arguably the league's biggest surprise in the early going, will head to Brooklyn to face the Nets (3-6) at the Barclays Center in NBA regular season action that can be live streamed here. Blazers fans can listen to the game on 1190 KEX Portland, while Nets fans can hear the game on 101.9 WFAN FM.
The Blazers are riding high at six games over .500 through 10 games, but breakout forward Nicolas Batum is concerned about Portland's propensity for blowing leads. In their most recent game, the Blazers coughed up a 17-point lead in regulation against the Toronto Raptors before slamming the door in overtime.
"This wasn't the first time we have done it," Batum said. "Four or five times in a row we've had a good lead and had to close out the game and the other team came back. It paid off because we won in overtime and when you are up 15, 18 points with seven minutes to go, we have to close out the game."
Despite the late-game woes, Portland's lethal 3-point shooting, coupled with the dominance of LaMarcus Aldridge down low (team highs of 22.2 points, 9.3 rebounds) has allowed the Blazers to streak to the top of the West.
The Nets are on the opposite end of this spectrum, surprising basketball observers negatively with a slow start and banged up players. They lost their fourth game out of five on Saturday against the Clippers, and are playing undermanned without Deron Williams and Brook Lopez.
"Those guys that suited up definitely gave me everything they had," rookie coach Jason Kidd said. "We just came up short, but the effort was there with the 10 guys that we had and we put ourselves in a position to win a game on the road against a very talented team."
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