Remember those idiots standing in the parking lot, talking on cell phones when they were supposed to be handing out Christmas trees to the kiddies for charity?

Remember those guys who could care less about the fans, because fans would still come up and ask for an autograph even after they were spit on?

Remember the Portland Jail Blazers? The Fail Blazers?

Intruders all.

	Scottie Pippen, left, has been a big reason for the Blazers' 19-4 second-half record.

What, are you kidding me? I love the Portland Trail Blazers.

They have, after all, won 18 of their past 21 games, and two of those losses were giveaways after they went up big and got cocky in the second half.

At 19-4, they have been the best team in the league since the All-Star break. By going 31-9 after starting out 13-18, they have catapulted from the 10th spot in the Western Conference and survived the threat of having the league's longest playoff run broken to the fifth spot in the West and being the Team Nobody Wants to Face in the first round.

And man, when you do all that in this league, people tend to forget rather quickly about your shortcomings and begin to focus on your attributes.

Hell yeah, I love the Blazers.

If they beat the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night, I say bring back J.R. Rider and make this boondoggle really fun.

Of course, one of my favorite movies is "Weekend at Bernie's," so you have to take my odes to l'amour with a grain of salt. But really, Andrew McCarthy was at his cinematic best in that flick. I don't understand why they didn't give Andy a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars the other night; they gave them to everybody else.

In any case, when I talk about the Blazers, what I really want to say is: About damn time!!!

Maybe we were all too impatient, and we wanted Maurice Cheeks to establish his regime immediately. Or maybe we set our sights too high. After all, what do you expect from the highest payroll in the league? Wins?

But what I really see is that this team finally appears to care. Too many times I have seen them run up and down the court, thinking they can turn it on whenever they want because they have all the talent in the world. Too many times they have put on display that cruddy attitude that emits arrogance and attracts disgust.

Too many times the players have taken their money and run, or, in this case, taken their money and jogged lightly up and down the court.

Now, though, they seem to understand that working hard for an entire game gives them the opportunity to win a lot of games, and to finally live up to the expectations that once were set and then forgotten and now, again, revisited.

What I wonder is this: General manager Bob Whitsitt, who constructed this team, said earlier this season, in what appeared to be a bailout of himself and his players, that this team was "rebuilding," despite an $87 million payroll. Now that they have shown what they are capable of -- now that they have proven they can be a dominant team -- does Whitsitt, or the fans in Portland, ever allow them to live down to the lowered expectations they achieved the past few years?

After all, I don't know too many teams that are rebuilding that can win 18 out of 21, and certainly not in the ultra-competitive West. Rebuilding by going 31-9? I don't think so.

No, this team is like the class clown who gets a 160 on an IQ test. Once it has been exposed, there is no going back. And what this Blazers team has shown us is that it indeed is capable of some special things.

It has won because it has rebounded. In the past 40 games, the Blazers have pulled down more rebounds than their opponents in 33 of them, by an average of 6.5 more per game.

It was won because, with the addition of Ruben Patterson, it plays defense. "Maurice has preached defense from Day One," assistant coach Jim Lynam says. "Once you buy into it and commit to it, it's something that is with you every night and carries you through the bad offensive nights. Our win streak evidenced that."

It has won because it now has confidence in itself.

It has won because it finally got altogether healthy.

It has won because it has hit a lot of big shots in games, including several by Bonzi Wells and several more by Scottie Pippen, one of the biggest cogs in the Blazers' rage against the machine.

"Without him, we wouldn't be any better than we were two months ago," says Steve Kerr. "People ask me why we are better, and I say because we got healthy. When I say that, I am really talking about Scottie.

	“	Without him, we wouldn't be any better than we were two months ago. People ask me why we are better, and I say because we got healthy. When I say that, I am really talking about Scottie (Pippen). ”
		— Steve Kerr

"He is the guy who gives our team not only the rhythm and the flow, but sort of that swagger. He has six rings. He has been there. He is the one smiling with three seconds left when he goes to the foul line with the game on the line. He is so relaxed."

It has won because perhaps it finally has found out what it means to be a team. Derek Anderson is not exactly enamored with coming off the bench, and he nearly went in to Whitsitt to ask for a trade.

On a Blazers team a few years ago, probably even last season, Anderson would have gone through with the demand, probably taking it public. Instead, he let it play out.

"I was like, 'I can't run from the situation that I don't have any control over,' " Anderson said. "But at the same time, I was thinking, 'Why would you pay a guy if you don't play him?' And I started to think it was because Maurice wasn't a part of the trade. And so I thought I would go to Bob if it came down to it, and say, 'You guys wanted me; use me.' But it never got to that.

"I said, 'Look, I just want to know what my role is ... once we got straight that he wanted me to come off the bench, hey, I'm there."

Now, the question, of course, is where does this team go from here? It could face any of the top four teams in a No. 4 vs. No. 5 matchup, depending on how the top seeds shake out in the final few weeks of the season.

Does it have a first-round flameout, making this entire second half a moot point, a mirage that quickly will be forgotten and everybody will go back to be Blazer haters? Winning cures everything, that's true, but people will turn on you just as quickly when you lose. Just ask Scott Norwood.

How much will Friday night's game have an affect on the season? After all, it was Portland's fourth-quarter collapse against the Lakers in the conference finals a few years back that started them on this destructive path.

If they were smart, they would not pay a great deal of attention to the outcome. A loss should not negate everything that this group has built over the past three months and send them into a funk just as they get geared up for the postseason.

Then again, if they win, I nominate Rasheed Wallace for Sportsman of the Year.

Frank Hughes, who covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.