After the way things turns out last night, Suns assistant coach Dan Majerle might petition the league to make the Trail Blazers play ever game at the Memorial Coliseum. After all, he’s 7-0 in that building over the last 14 years. Majerle was a member of the ’95-’95 Phoenix team that swept the Blazers at the Coliseum, both in the regular season and in the first round of the playoffs, so it’s no wonder he’s got such fond memories of the “Glass Palace.”
“Loved playing here,” said Majerle. “Just a classic old building. Not very big but fans are right on top of you, extremely loud. It’s a lot like the building in Phoenix, the old Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. A lot of similarities. These are the types of buildings that were always fun to play in because the atmosphere really set the game off.”
It’s usually assumed that a loud and rowdy crowd benefits the home side, and it probably does, but according to “Thunder Dan”, playing in a hostile road enviroment is almost as good as playing in front of the home crowd.
“There’s something about playing in an arena like (the Memorial Coliseum) where it’s more intimate, the fans are closer, there are no boxes. Just seats and it seems like the fans are right on top of you. As a player that’s a fun atmosphere to play in.”
The teams that Majerle played against in the MC were some of the best in Trail Blazers history, so much so that teams like the Suns had to make personnel moves to keep up.
“The reason why we traded for Charles Barkley in ’92 because we couldn’t get past those Portland teams with Terry Porter, Buck Williams, Duckworth, Drexler and Kersey,” said Majerle. “Just a very talented, hardnosed team that could score, play defense. Just a very hard team to get by. That’s the main reason why we went out and got a guy like Charles, to see if we could beat this Portland team.”
1 comment:
Man, I hated when THundar Dan would hit those big 3's in those games back in the day. But hey, that's pretty cool that they got Chuck just so they could try and get past us - shows that great Ptown team some respect - again, that was one great and awesome team.
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