Golden State Warriors at Portland Trail Blazers preview: Warriors face Oakland native Damian Lillard

Tip-off: 7:00 pm PDT

Where: Rose Garden - Portland, Oregon

TV: NBA TV / Radio: None

Blog buddy: Blazer's Edge

Is anybody else ready for the preseason to be over yet?

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News said before the Golden State Warriors' preseason began that there "doesn’t seem to be a loud and demanding story early in this camp" and that's pretty much how things have played out.

Sure coach Mark Jackson still has to make a decision about who will start. And I've had as much fun as anyone watching rookie center Festus Ezeli emerge as a potential option in the Warriors' frontcourt rotation, even if only in limited minutes as a defensive presence. I've probably been less encouraged by the point guard play if point guard Stephen Curry goes down for whatever reason.

But aside from the injury concerns surrounding Curry - who's starting to get his rhythm back - and Warriors center Andrew Bogut, I'm about ready to see how this season plays out. With it looking like Bogut is still "a ways away", there's not a whole lot more that we're going to learn about this team's chances for the season in preseason.

Anyway, the Blazers on the other hand are still familiarizing themselves with their new young core by the day, which includes Oakland native Damian Lillard. Lillard led the Blazers with 20 points in his last outing against the Sacramento Kings on Monday. While it seems that scoring hasn't been a problem for Lillard thus far in this preseason, defense might have been in that game - the Aykis16 of SacTown Royalty observed that he seemed to be having trouble defending Aaron Brooks.

In any event, Dave at Blazer's Edge suggests in his preview of tonight's game that Blazers fans have hopes as high for their Lillard-Wesley Matthews backcourt as we do for our backcourt of Curry-Klay Thompson, which actually does add an intriguing matchup to this game (aside from watching to see how Meyers Leonard, who the Warriors passed on in favor of Harrison Barnes, does against our bigs).

And now I've written myself into being excited about this game. Game thread coming later.