Well that was fun, wasn't it?
After Sunday's embarrassing 45-point loss, the young Blazers showed the pride and fight their coach was asking for.
While it’s still very early in the season, the 2024-25 Portland Trail Blazers have developed a bit of a pattern to their season. And it’s a pattern they will likely continue, being the young team that they are. But at least there’s been some fun basketball mixed in with that pattern, with the best of it coming the last two nights.
Following opening night’s 31-point loss to Golden State, the Blazers followed that historic loss by winning two of their next three games. And following this Sunday’s even more embarrassing 45-point loss to a Memphis Grizzlies team without their two leading scorers, the questions began to swirl whether Chauncey Billups’ tenure as Blazers head coach was coming to a close.
The Blazers, as they did after their opening night loss, responded with pride. Billups, being the competitive former player that he is, suggested that if Portland slept well after Sunday, they were losers.
While Shaedon Sharpe led the team with a career-high 33 points, including the play of the game with a high-flying putback slam dunk, Wednesday night showed something the Blazers already knew: Donovan Clingan is a winner.
Prior to Sharpe’s thrilling slam, it was Clingan who got the crowd into a tizzy. He had three blocks in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter and that only continued, as he recorded four blocks in the fourth period, nearly Doing It With Blocks (shout out to Hassan Whiteside), narrowly missing a triple-double with 17 points, 13 rebounds and 8 blocks. When Clingan left the game with 2 and half minutes left to get a quick breather following a knee to the hip from Rudy Gobert, the crowd gave him a standing ovation, before he eventually came back in to finish the game.
And after every block, Clingan got even more intense. With the crowd cheering, the kid who everyone says needs to work on his conditioning, played 31 minutes on his way to 17 points, 13 rebounds and eight blocks. Clingan played over 30 minutes only four times in his career at UCONN, but it was the fire he learned at UCONN that fueled Portland, and his big night.
“I just want to win,” Clingan said when asked about his competitive fire. “I feel like that’s the biggest thing. At the end of the day, no matter how many points, rebounds and blocks I had, what puts a smile on my face is knowing I left my all out there and that my team won.”
When he was pressed for when the competitive fire started to grow, Clingan took us back into the time machine.
“It started in late high school. Being around Coach Hurley, watching UCONN, knowing I was going there. And then when I got to UCONN, I feel like it took off from there.”
Coach Chauncey Billups said Clingan’s competitive fire is what the Blazers have come to expect, even if most fans saw it for the first time on Wednesday. Billups wants even more from Clingan when it comes to voicing his competitive fire to his teammates.
“Oh man. Most people that know him well know that about him. But he’s a real competitive and he cares about doing it right,” Billups said. “He cares about being there, being a good teammate. But he’s a competitor man, he’s trying to go after everything. He is actually pissed if he doesn’t block that shot or when he goes to block a shot and his man gets an offensive rebound. He’s hot. I just want him to voice that. I want him to be a little better about that. Voice it. Let your teammates know you mad. Let ‘em know why you mad. That’s his next step.”
And in terms of next steps, Sharpe looked like he was taking the steps the franchise needs him to take on Wednesday night. In his fourth game back, Sharpe finished with a career-high 33 points while out-dueling new Face of the NBA Anthony Edwards. And when he was asked about the matchup with Edwards, in typical Sharpe fashion, he didn’t think it that big of a deal.
“Not really,” Sharpe said when asked if he had an any extra motivation playing against a star of Edwards’ caliber. “Whoever the matchup is, I’m gonna come out and play hard. So, uhh, yeah.”
When it came to his dunk, his teammates had a lot more to say.
Jerami Grant on Sharpe’s slam: “Shit. I missed the shot and I see him flying in, he got that fo’ sho.”
Clingan on the Sharpe slam: “Oh my god. I haven’t seen Shaedon in person get up yet. Obviously he was out a little bit with the shoulder so I haven’t seen some of the stuff. I was under the rim looking and Shaedon came out of nowhere and I was just like ‘Oh my god.’ Yeah, that was crazy.”
Sharpe lets his game do the talking and on Wednesday night, it was speaking louder than it has before in his career.
The early pattern and this team’s general lack of 3-point shooting will likely involve a lot more losses. But the last two nights showed fans a glimpse of the kind of season this could be, with a couple of fun wins mixed in with the occasional blowout.
If the current ratio of blowouts to competitive nights remains, maybe the fun nights can make up for the ones when they remind everyone this team is still in the middle of a rebuild.
Notes
This is the first time I’ve written here since the passing of former Blazers announcer Brian Wheeler. When I was back on the beat full-time at The Columbian, I had the great privilege of sitting in front of Wheels as he called games. I can still recall the sound of him banging the table when the Blazers messed up and his amazing calls next to Antonio Harvey anytime the Blazers made the crowd go wild. Wheels was a kind soul and anybody who knew him felt that kind of warmth. It’s so sad that he died so young. The Godfather Dwight Jaynes wrote a difficult eulogy for Wheels on his Substack earlier this week, which is worth your time.
Anfernee Simons was away from the team on Wednesday night after dealing with a shortness of breath in Tuesday night’s win. Chauncey Billups said that Simons woke up not feeling very well and also said that Simons doesn’t seem to concerned about how he will feel long term. While the Blazers are being vague, you just hope that Simons is OK, above all else.
Deandre Ayton missed his second straight game with a right finger sprain. That the Blazers won both games without Ayton in the lineup against a team with high expectations could push the Blazers to think about moving him. Ayton has been, by all accounts, nothing but a good teammate and in particular, he’s been very supportive of Clingan. But seeing how Portland played with Clingan and Robert Williams in Ayton’s spot definitely raised some eyebrows.
The other consequence of Simons not playing is that the Blazers are playing more Dalano Banton. I don’t know what it is about Banton, maybe it’s his off-kilter kind of style, but the way he moves confuses defenses every night that he plays. Combined with his size, he gives teams problems on a nightly basis. There are a lot of reasons outside of his play that have him where he is in the Blazers pecking order, most notably the fact they have a lottery pick and a guard making over $25 million per year in front of him. But every time he plays, he makes a case that maybe, the pecking order should change.
After racking up DNPs over the last couple of games, Kris Murray made an impact on both ends in limited minutes. Those moments have been rare, so it was an encouraging performance in a big spot.
The NBA Cup rules. I can’t understand the arguments against it. All it does is get the best basketball players in the world to care a little bit more about the slog of the regular season. What a tragedy! While some people might suggest every regular season game is just as good as the tournament, and some definitely are, they’re also lying to themselves that the monetary incentive doesn’t drive these guys to play harder, even if it’s just a little bit harder.
Check out my game recap for the Associated Press.