B
S PORTS
Section B
Ball is Life:
A look at the
young NBA
season
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
Lions prevail past Gladiators and into semis
By Zach Silva
The Portland Trail Blazers are
many things: frustrating, dra-
matic, turnover-prone and ex-
citing. But above all else, so far
in this young season this team
seems to excel at being average.
But before we explore how the
Blazers fi t into the league hier-
archy, we should fi rst look at the
NBA landscape. There are cur-
rently three tiers of teams in the
league right now:
Tier One: Golden State.
Tier Two: Nearly everyone
else.
Tier Three: The Dallas Mav-
ericks. (Okay, and the Kings,
Hawks and Bulls. And the Tier
Three Hawks already have a
win over the once great Cleve-
land Cavaliers this season. Sure
that means nothing, but hey
good for them.)
And those are the divisions
of the teams: we have the Un-
attainable, the Maybe Good and
the Bad.
Golden State is Golden State
and as a society we shouldn’t
trust anyone who thinks there
is a current NBA roster out
there that can beat them in a
seven-game series. The end.
But then we have that group
of 25 teams that are seemingly
a mystery. How good are these
Rockets and what happens to
their success when Chris Paul
returns? How long can this Celt-
ics winning streak go? How did
the Clippers get so bad so fast
(they are an abysmal 1-7 since
Blake Griffi n’s game winner
against the Blazers with that
one win being against the two-
win Mavericks. What in the
world Clippers)? And that is all
without addressing the fact that
Cleveland is currently ninth in
the East and four games behind
the Pistons which is all just as-
tonishing.
Even though we are working
with a somewhat small sample
size, the parity of the NBA is a
wonderful thing. As of this writ-
ing, there are three games sepa-
rating teams number three to 13
in the East and 4.5 games sepa-
rating number one to 10 in the
West. That’s it. Every team is a
brief win streak or quick slide
away from fl ipping where they
are in the rankings.
While we may know the end-
ing to the book that is the 2017-
18 NBA season – the Warriors
claiming their third title in four
years – the road there is full of
exciting subtweets (LeBron and
Eric Bledsoe already at midsea-
son form), unicorns (Kristaps
and Giannis are forever), the
post-Process 76ers and future
Wizard DeMarcus Cousins be-
coming everything we have
ever hoped.
It is in this busy NBA land-
scape that we then have the
Portland Trail Blazers. As they
embark on their journey to not
get bounced in the playoffs by
the Warriors for the third con-
secutive year (I mean, they
could take maybe a game or
two? Is that in the realm of pos-
sibility??), they are still work-
ing out who they are as a team.
Instead of being granted clar-
ity on early season questions
about this team, the (as of this
writing) 6-6 Blazers have grown
more enigmatic. Can they fi nish
games? Can Nurkic stay on the
fl oor in the fourth quarter? Do
they know how to run a fast
break?
From the outside looking in,
the Blazers are not confusing:
they are an average team per-
forming in an average way. It
seems quite simplistic, really.
But this team should seeming-
ly be…better. And maybe even
good?
In this early season, the Blaz
ers have not yet been able to
Ball is Life: cont. on page B3
PHOTOS BY CGHS PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS/CHANDLER BASCUE AND KATHLEEN NOLL
Cottage Grove's Hayden Glenn comes up with a game-sealing interception in the fourth quarter.
Cottage Grove football
defeats Gladstone in a rare
"close" game
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
In a year where their number one of-
fense has impressed, outperformed and
overwhelmed opponents, it was Cot-
tage Grove’s defense that guided the top
ranked Lions past Gladstone last Friday
and into the state football semifi nals.
In their fi nal home game of the sea-
son, it was the Lions earning a 27-10
quarterfi nal victory in their closest game
they have played since a mid-Septem-
ber 35-20 win over number two-ranked
Scappoose.
“We haven’t played a ball game in
seven weeks. We haven’t been in a
ballgame since Scappoose. A true ball-
game,” said Cottage Grove head coach
Gary Roberts. “And you wonder how
kids are going to react when they hav-
en’t been in situations like that in seven
weeks now. And our kids did a really
good job of continuing to play and con-
tinuing to battle and understand that it’s
a four-quarter game.”
In the fi rst quarter it felt like a famil-
iar script for the Lions. Chad Bottorff
had a 38-yard run that put the Lions up
early. Following the score, it was Jacob
Woods with two highlight reel touch-
down grabs. On the fi rst he out jumped
a defender and came down with the ball
and on the second he laid out for a div-
ing grab to put Cottage Grove up 20-0.
“I feel like I started out well,” said
Woods. “Just run for the ball and catch
it.”
While this is normally when the Lions
surge past opponents with a high scoring
second quarter and put the mercy rule
into effect in the second half, it was not
the same against the Gladiators.
After a Bottorff fumble and a rough-
ing the passer call on 3rd down, Glad-
stone was inside the Lions 20 but were
In the second half, as Cottage Grove’s
offense stalled, the defense continued
to stop the Gladiators from ever getting
into any sort of rhythm. After a Woods
interception, his second of the game,
was returned to the Gladstone 10-yard
line, the Lions were in position to score.
Graves found Giffen through the air for
a six-yard score. Graves fi nished the
game six-of-thirteen with three touch-
downs and two interceptions.
As Gladstone began to drive in the
fourth quarter, it was Giffen who came
up with an interception that sealed the
victory for the Lions.
“[Tonight’s game] shows that our de-
fense is strong. You know we made a ton
of mistakes tonight which we’re going
to clean up and our defense is going to
be stronger than ever,” said Woods.
With the win, the Lions secured a spot
in the semifi nals for the second year in
a row. They will face Mazama on Sat-
urday at 4 p.m. at Grants Pass High
School.
The Vikings were the winners of the
Skyline Conference and are 9-1 on the
season. Their one loss came to Henley
who they defeated last week in the quar-
terfi nals 50-0.
“They’re a physical team and they ‘re
going to come after us and it will be up
to us to see where we stand. We’ll fi nd
out next week,” said Roberts.
“I know they’re a power running team
and that they are well coached and that
they are going to get after us.”
Cottage Grove's Chad Bottorff evades a Gladstone defender.
How to watch the
Portland Trail Blazers
in Cottage Grove
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Watching the Portland Trail Blazers in Cottage Grove has not
been an easy task.
This has nothing to do with their middling .500 record but
because 71 of their regular season games are only broadcast via
Comcast which is not available to Cottage Grove consumers.
“Comcast has never been down here,” said Cottage Grove
City Manager Richard Meyers.
“There’s no market here. The market is so small, the take rate
is small because we have great over the air service from South
Lane TV.”
The take rate is the “amount of people that actually subscribe.
So if you go by 10 houses, how many actually subscribe and join
up. And so it’s grown and improved over the last couple years as
a result of their expansion and fi ber and data services that they
are providing now,” said Meyers.
Athletes of
the Week
held to a fi eld goal.
Cottage Grove was then forced to punt
on the next possession, which was just
the third time that the Lions have punted
in the fi rst half this season. One play lat-
er, a Gladiators' fake reverse found Ben
Hill open downfi eld for a 45-yard recep-
tion after a Lions defender fell down on
the coverage.
“He kind of got shoved down but, you
know, regardless, he got burnt,” said
Roberts about the lone touchdown the
team gave up.
The current cable and satellite options for Cottage Grove res-
idents include Charter Spectrum Cable, Dish TV and DirecTV.
This means that except for the 11 nationally televised games this
season, Blazers fans are not able to view regular season games.
This has been the case since the CSN became the sole broad-
caster of games in 2007. During the summer the partnership was
renewed until the 2020-21 NBA season. This partnership espe-
cially impacts small towns around the state where Comcast does
not reach.
But as TV viewing habits continue to shift from cable to a
streaming-based service model, the Blazers have gotten on
board. Last spring, Blazers broadcasts started streaming with
Playstation VUE. This streaming service, which can be accessed
through PlayStation consoles, AppleTV, Google Chromecasts
and a host of other platforms, can give viewers over 90 channels
and runs from $39.99 a month up to $74.99.
This season, fans can also get games through similarly priced
Hulu TV, Fubo Premier or NBC’s Blazers Pass which lets the
viewer pick 15 games they would like to watch. The YouTube
TV service that also provides games is not yet available in Cot-
tage Grove.
Due to NBA blackout restrictions, which take place when a
game is “televised locally in your area via a regional sports net-
work or an over-the-air station” according to NBA.com, fans are
unable to use the NBA’s streaming service NBA League Pass
to watch the Blazers, Sacramento Kings and Golden State War-
riors.
Streaming
Options:
Hulu TV: $39.99 per
month (fi rst week free)
Playstation Vue:
$39.99 per month +
$10.00 a month for
Sports Package
Fubu Premier:
$39.99 a month
(fi rst two months at
$19.99 a month)
Blazers Pass via
NBC Sports North-
west: $34.99 for 15
games of your choice
This week’s athletes of the week are the Cottage Grove
Team GPAs:
fall sports teams not because of their play on the fi eld Volleyball: 3.7 (4th in 4A)
but because of their work in the classroom. Each year
Girls Soccer: 3.6
the OSAA grants Academic All-State honors to all Girls Cross Country: 3.57
teams that fi nish with an average GPA of 3.0 or higher Boys Cross Country: 3.2
and this fall all of Cottage Grove’s teams achieved
Boys Soccer: 3.12
this distinction with the volleyball team leading the
Football: 3.0
way with a 3.7 average.
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
zsilva@cgsentinel.com