[Thanks to sin (and his lame 'brand') for today's game preview. Not that there were many defenders left of VDN at the time, but of them one of the contentions was that he got the team to play hard. I think it's been proven that they're a self-started team that will play hard for pretty much anyone. Maybe not Jim Boylan.

Clippers blew out the Pistons in Detroit last night. Tonight's game is at 7 on WGN -ed.]

No Noah.  Depressed.  Everyone's depressed.  I know, I am too.  But, hey: Blazer fans deal with this every year.  Lakers fans sometimes too.  And most definitely Rockets fans.  Oh well, life goes on.  Tonight we begin the long two month journey without Noah.  It'll be painfu,l but there's nothing we can do now, so let's move onto the game at hand.  The other LA team is in town!

Now if it weren't for this Noah thing we'd all be focusing on the big story at hand tonight.  I know you've all had it marked down on your calendars.  The big return is tonight, guys.  It's really here.  No, it's not LeBron going back to Cleveland (how boring was that?).  Get your vaccination shots.  It's VDN season again. For those of you who have contracted it, you know what I'm talking about. For those who haven't, trust me: you don't want to deal with it.

via i182.photobucket.com

(credit to Souleater7 for finding/posting this in one of the game threads earlier in the week)

It certainly was a process.  A very very long process.

I've got to tell you guys, I am scared.  I think he might actually try coaching to make a statement against his former team, the one that shoved him and fired him.  Usually, these situations should be advantageous for the opposing team, but I don't know what we'll do when he calls out "ATTACK!".  Does that mean a Baron Davis iso?  A pick and roll for Blake?  A long range bomb at the end of the shot clock from (Eric) Gordon?  Man, how do game plan against this kind of coaching...oh wait...I think I see it now...yes...yes. I finally am beginning to see the brilliance of VDN.

On a more serious note, tonight is a good first test for our weakened front line.  With Blake Griffin in town, they're sure to be tested.  By the way, have I mentioned how excited I am to watch this kid play?  I just hope Scal isn't on him at any point in the game.  Okay, maybe for one play just so Griffin can smash it on him and make signing Scalabrine for the season totally worth it.  Between Griffin and Rose, the highlights for tonight's game should be pretty epic. I honestly doubt we'll have much of a problem tonight.  I don't see anyone outside of Blake giving us too much of an issue, so it should be an easy win unless Derrick gets emotional over the return of his first NBA head coach or something bogus like that.

Now onto my predictions for tonight (and I'm going out on a limb on some of these):

- VDN actually draws ONE play tonight
- Rose realizes two years of his life were wasted away by the guy in front of the other team's bench and decides to go off for 50
- Blake has at least one OMGWTF dunk
- Bulls win by 20+
- Noah wears something fucking awesome.

(Note: I had to remove a Kirk Thomas joke since it was stolen on twitter earlier yesterday. Poop. I had been waiting to use that one too.)

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