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The Portland Trailblazers won a key playoff game last night in the Rose Garden.

The 107-to-103 Blazers victory tied the first-round series with the Houston Rockets at one game apiece.

The winner of this series gets a likely match-up against superstar Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Ethan Lindsey reports that has some basketball fans thinking back to Blazers’ history.

This Portland Trailblazers team is the second-youngest in the National Basketball Association – the players average 24 and a half years old.

In comparison, Houston’s players average 28 years old.

Travis Outlaw, the 24-year-old sharp-shooting Blazer forward, says the team’s youth actually helps the team bounce back from a bad loss.

Travis Outlaw: “We feel like we gotta stick together, we gotta hold each other accountable, we have to have each other’s back, and pick each other up when we are down.”

Portland’s team is recognized by the league – and fans -- for its success and demeanor both on and off the court.

It's déjà vu for some long time fans, who remember 30 years back, when Bill Walton was the star.

Bill Walton: “The Blazer maniacs fell in love with that team because of the way we played – the unselfishness, the teamwork.”

That’s Walton from an NBA documentary about the championship the Blazers won in 1977.

Seven years after joining the league, the Blazers upset the Philadelphia 76ers and superstar Dr. J, Julius Erving.

Bill Schonely: “The Blazers got into playoffs almost barely that year, but by then, they were rolling.”

Bill Schonely was the first play-by-play announcer for the Trailblazers. He covered the fabled 1977 team.

Bill Schonely: “Led by a guy by the name of Bill Walton, who had maybe his finest year ever, everything fell into place, I can see a similar pattern with this present team that the Trailblazers have.”

Schonely knows what makes this city’s sporting heart beat.

In fact, in the early Blazer years, he came up with the city’s most famous sports moniker.  It came to him on a shot by Jimmy Barnett, a former Trailblazer nicknamed ‘Crazy horse’.

Bill Schonely: “In this day and age, it would have been a 3-point play. Well, he let it go for whatever reason, the guy was a flake anyway, I say that in the nicest way, and he threw it up. And lo and behold, it went in. So I was describing the play, and right at the end I say, ‘Rip City, alright!’”

Schonely says he can feel the re emergence of that ‘Rip City’ Blazer mania with this current team.

Sitting court side before yesterday’s game, Blazer’s Edge-dot-com sportsblogger  Ben Golliver says that’s a welcome change.

Ben Golliver:  “I can remember as recently as 2005 coming to a game and having an entire section to myself.”

Those teams weren’t just bad.

Multiple brushes with the law gave them a new nickname – the Jail Blazers.

Ben Golliver: “Personally, I get a little offended by the term like Jail Blazers. I don’t think that’s something that in a predominantly white city, with a predominantly black team, that’s not a term that I think should be tossed around that much.”

Golliver says this team, just like the 1977 team, connects with the Portland fan base on a deeper level.

Ben Golliver: “There are a lot of transplants from the Midwest who have made their way to Portland, like my parents for example came from Michigan right around the time of the first team. Humble, hard working, blue-collar, take no nonsense kind of people, and they are looking for a team that reflects their personality, just like any other city would.”

But this  Blazers team has yet to prove whether it can get out of the first-round of the NBA playoffs.

Some fans say that’s not the end of the world.

The team’s youth means that the players could be even better next year – and the city is again proud.

As today’s fans cheer for star Brandon Roy and this team, Bill Walton’s retired jersey number 32 hangs proudly above, in the rafters of the Rose Garden.