Trail Mix: Blazers react to death of fan who collapsed at Thursday’s game

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The woman who collapsed during the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s Blazers-Mavericks game passed away at the age of 67. Blazers players and coaches were shaken after the incident last night and were saddened to hear of her passing. And from talking to the players, it sounds like the woman who passed was a season ticket holder.

• LaMarcus Aldridge said he was shaken seeing the scene from the bench. “It’s very sad to hear. I said a prayer for her during the game,” said Aldridge. “I definitely said a prayer for her last night. I was hoping that she would pull through. That’s never something that you want to see or have to experience. I didn’t know how to recover from it. Im glad I wasn’t in the game cause I was kind of shook after the fact. Just to see that type of scene going on on the court I had never seen that before. I’m sure myself and the Trail Blazers we’ll do something on our end to try to give back. Just try to help. That’s something we never want to see or our fans want to see. She was a season ticket holder so I know this organization will do something to try to help.”
• Chris Kaman said it helped put things in perspective and that it hurt his hear to see it all happen. “My heart hurts last night just watching them try to revive her there on the court. It’s tough as a team I think we said a prayer for her when we came in the locker room. We’re hoping for the best. It’s unfortunate. I heard she was a season ticket holder I think I’m not sure and it’s just sad. It’s never a good thing to have something like that happen in a season and in a game. It’s unfortunate, it’s unbelievable actually. It’s like almost surreal to see something like that. It makes you rethink a few things in life, you know.”
• Nicolas Batum said that the loss was tough because he sees the players and fans as one family. “We heard that this morning. It’s sad news. I mean, everything my sympathy for the family. It was a tough situation for them. even for us during the game when that happened it was kind of sad because us, this team, this city, this community is a big family. That was kind of weird last night.”
• The Blazers also face the Los Angeles Clippers tomorrow, who are coming off a huge loss which was followed by a rant where he called his team soft. While they could be hungry for a win, the Blazers are still focused on themselves. “I think it’s interesting that’s how things go,” he said when asked if the Blazers have to be ready after Rivers called out his team. “But for us we’re trying to do what we’ve done the last two games and play a full 48 minutes of basketball to the best we can and control the things we can control. We lost a tough one to Golden State. We were up 1 with 14 seconds to left with the ball and we should have won that game. That’s how basketball goes sometimes, we’re not worried about what they are doing and we’re worried about what they are doing.”
• The game is at 12:30, which is a little different than what the Blazers are used to. “I’m not going to lie it is different. I don’t know if it’s hard. It’s hard to get warmed up right away,” Chris Kaman said. “We do so many games at 7 and 730 it makes it that much more difficult to start at 12:30. Your body is awake at 7 or 730 and you’re ready to go. Even a 6:30 game not so bad but when you’re in a 12:30 game it changes things but it changes things for them as well. We’re in the same time zone. It’s not a huge deficit for either side.” Aldridge isn’t too keen on the idea. “Not too hot about that but hey, it’s the NBA. I love playing basketball so I’ll be there,” he said.
• Nicolas Batum noticed that the game will be at 9:30 France time, there for people in his home country can watch the game without having to stay up into the wee hours of the morning. “9:30 in France so it’s good for me.”
• Kaman isn’t new to playing at 12:30 since he used to do it in his days with the Clippers. “When I played at the Clippers we had a lot of 12:30 games. Sunday’s were always 12:30 cause when you play in the Staples Center you’re the JV game. Cause the Kings, it’s their arena. You know they started the whole thing and then the Lakers jumped in and the Clippers jumped in. We’re always stuck playing behind those guys at the Clippers. Toronto does them too.”