Blazers on life support

Wanted: Priest to administer last rites.

Please come to the Rose Garden Arena at One Center Court in Portland, Oregon. You can't miss the building. There is a beautiful water fountain at the front entrance and a mediocre basketball team that resides inside the building a couple of nights a week.

Get here quick, because the Blazers' streak of consecutive playoff appearances is just about dead at the ripe old age of 21.

The streak is dead. Long live the draft lottery.

Technically, the streak is still alive, but the vultures are beginning to circle.

Let's put it this way... if the Blazers' playoff appearance streak were a horse, it would be shot. Put out of its misery.

If the streak were a ramshackle, rundown building, it would be condemned.

If the streak were a convicted murderer on death row, it would be executed.

Yes, the streak is on life-support right now, barely hanging by a thread. However, come April 15, 2004, the streak's misery will be over.

April 15 is the day after the Blazers play their final regular season game. Mathematically, the streak could be over before that, but the obituary will be written on that day.

So how did this happen? How did these Blazers manage to put this streak in jeopardy?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Road record

The Blazers have lost nine straight games on the road to start the season.

It's been a long time since a Blazers' team has lost nine consecutive road games. You have to go all the way back to the 1988-89 season.

Try going back to the 1980-81 season to find a Blazers team that started the season with more consecutive road losses. That year, the Blazers started 0-13.

I remember the 1980-81 Blazers. They weren't very good.

Just to give you a sense of how long ago that was, here are a few members of that infamous Blazers team: Jim Paxson, Mychal Thompson, Kelvin Ransey, Calvin Natt, Tom Owens, Bob Gross, Billy Ray Bates, Kermit Washington, Kevin Kunnert, Ron Brewer and Mike Gale.

Not exactly a murderer's row, huh? Well, at least they made the playoffs. I'm not so sure the same will be said about the 2003-04 Blazers.

The sad thing is that the Blazers have only played nine road games as opposed to 16 home games, meaning they have seven road games to make up.

Defense

Good god, somebody place a call to motivational speaker Anthony Robbins. Have you ever seen as unmotivated a group as the Portland Trail Blazers trying to play defense? I think I have-at the city morgue.

And speaking of the 1980s, the Blazers are playing defense a lot like they did back then, which is to say they're not really defending at all.

The Blazers defense appears to have more holes in it than a Scott Peterson alibi.

The Blazers are dead last in the league in opponent's field goal percentage, allowing opponents to shoot 47.6%. Teams are conducting layup drills against the Blazers' matador-like defense.

I don't think Johnnie Cochran could help the Blazers defense at this point.

The emergence of perennial cellar dwellers in the Western Conference

Whodathunkit? The Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies are contenders for a playoff spot, and the Blazers (12-13) are dangerously close to falling behind the Clippers in the Pacific division standings.

A closer look at the Western Conference standings reveals that all seven teams in the Midwest division have better records than the Blazers. Heck, even the Utah Jazz have a shot at the playoffs this season, and nobody gave them a snowball's chance after the retirement of John Stockton and the departure of Karl Malone.

Let's face facts. The 2003-04 Blazers are bad. Really bad. The season is a lost cause. The Blazers will be blazing a trail to the draft lottery. If I could give any piece of advice to Blazers general manager John Nash, it would be this: pour some gasoline over this trash heap and strike a match, quick. Start a fire sale, preferably before the trade deadline.

Blow this sucker up before it implodes. Although it might be too late for that. It appears the player mutiny has begun. Not so much against coach Cheeks, but against each other. Somebody push the panic button.

Sunday night's 117-98 loss at Sacramento was televised on local television, and I had to laugh when the movie "Titanic" was joined in progress immediately following the game.

Just like the movie, I think we all know how this Blazers season is going to end.