While the Blazers win again, the NBA changed right under their feet.
The Blazers won again, but almost nobody could focus on it after the Dallas Mavericks shocked the NBA world by trading Luka Doncic to the Lakers.
The Portland Trail Blazers keep winning and things have gotten to the point where I expected them to win tonight. With an older Phoenix Suns team coming in on the second night of a back to back, the win looked good on paper, given the Blazers are arguably the hottest team in the NBA right now.
And the Blazers did what they have done consistently for the past two weeks: made life a living hell for the opposing offense. Deandre Ayton has been an absolute terror for teams on both ends. And during Saturday night’s blowout of the Suns, everybody on the Blazers contributed to make life harder on Phoenix’s superstar star duo of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.
Booker earned every single one of his 37 points and the Blazers downright had success on Durant all night long, holding him to just 22 points. Jerami Grant, who hasn’t really been touted for his defense during his Blazers career, even though began his career as a defensive specialist, blocked a Durant fadeaway once and nearly blocked another, forcing one of the greatest scorers in NBA history to pass out of his signature fadeaway.
After Saturday night’s win, the Blazers have posted the No. 2 Defensive Rating in the NBA over the past two weeks, according to Cleaning The Glass. For almost his entire tenure as Blazers coach, Chauncey Billups has wanted the Blazers to be a team that “isn’t fun to play against.” When they were up 20 in the second half, Billups called on his team to run a fullcourt press. For the first time in a long time, this team is playing the way he’s always wanted them to.
“I tell our guys is an NBA game is never over. It just isn’t. With the 3-point shot so prevalent now, guys can get going and go on a 9-0 run. Getting it to 12, the game is never over,” Billups said about why he wanted his team to press. “So you have to stay aggressive the entire time. And I was happy to see our guys just do that. We wanted to just try and wear on this team knowing that they played last night. You catch a team on a back to back you want to try and wear them down, wear them down and wear them down. I thought we stuck to that.”
The Blazers keep getting solid contributions from their two young guards–Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe–off the bench. And while it’s a less than ideal situation that they aren’t starting, it does seem like taking away some of the expected minutes has been beneficial to Sharpe, in particular. Sharpe had been scoring well but had seen his defense slip to the point where Billups opted to bring him off the bench. Of course, in Year 3 you would hope that such benching to learn a lesson wouldn’t be necessary. But in the case of Sharpe, he has been responding. Between the Orlando game and Saturday’s win against Phoenix, it may have been his two best back-to-back games.
And of course, there is the other side of the coin in the year of the Cooper Flagg lottery. This stretch has almost assured they will not finish in the bottom four, meaning the Blazers will not secure the best possible lottery odds at the No. 1 pick. But from the #Scootissance, to Shaedon showing flashes, to the defense they have shown led by Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara, it’s OK to celebrate this stretch of play.
Even if the Blazers were to finish in the bottom four, figuring out where the ping pong balls will fall was always still out of their hands.
Following Portland’s win against Orlando, Scoot Henderson talked about playing hard and how sometimes the Basketball Gods will look down on you and reward you. Scoot was talking about the Orlando game. But that sentiment could apply to Portland’s lottery hopes as well.
The last three seasons, Portland has shamelessly tanked, shut down their players and played some of the worst basketball this market has ever seen in service of maximizing their lottery odds. And in light of the Terry Rozier scandal, where he was benched in a late March game to help the Hornets tank, the NBA could crack down even harder on the tanking measures Portland has applied in years past. So, perhaps there is something to be said for making a sacrifice to the Basketball Gods by actually giving a shit. At least, I hope the Basketball Gods will have something to say about it come lottery time.
The NBA Just Changed
When ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Luka Doncic had been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, the Blazers and Suns were the only two NBA teams playing. With the Blazers blowing the Suns out and the game being in garbage time, it gave the opportunity for news to spread from the fans to the players in real time.
“Somebody told us on the bench. They said said Luka and I said Luka Garza? Who got traded? And that’s no shade to Luka Garza, but yeah, crazy,” Devin Booker said about how he heard about the trade.
“Man, a couple of fans was just on they phone during the game in the fourth quarter and saying Luka got traded and I’m like “get the fuck…” and our secruity guy showed me his phone,” Kevin Durant said. “I seen Shams and once you seen Shams tweet it you know it’s for sure. But like I said, crazy, crazy, crazy league. Looking forward to the next couple of days.”
Players on both teams were in a state of shock after the game, with several players both on the record and off, remarking about how if the Mavs could trade Luka Doncic in the prime of his career, any of them could be next.
“It’s crazy man. I really don’t know what to say about it. Luka being a guy that everybody has claimed as untouchable and untradeable. The NBA shows you again,” Booker, who has played his entire career with the Suns, said. “You can’t predict it. It’s a business. They’re always having a conversation about you. So don’t think you’re safer than you are.”
Kevin Durant knows a thing or two about seeing a key piece get traded after an NBA Finals run, seeing James Harden get traded to the Houston Rockets after making it to the Finals with the Thunder in 2012.
“Yeah, I dealt with that coming off the Finals and you trade a huge, huge part of your team. And it just takes something away,” Durant said. “It takes your identity away, especially when you have had success, you have to reshape your team and figure out who you are as a unit with a new guy coming in. They got veteran guys over there, Kyrie is a champ already, AD’s a champ already, so for sure they will figure it out very quickly. It’s the nature of the sport, anything can happen. It will keep you on edge.”
If there was one thing to take away from the Moda Center on Saturday night, it’s that after the Doncic trade, nobody in the NBA feels safe about their place. Even in the NBA, where superstar players are said to run the league, Saturday night was a reminder that the league’s billionaire owners can pull the plug on any player, anytime they want.
With five days to go until the trade deadline, that feeling is permeating through every team in the league, including the Blazers.
And while it’s been a quiet time for Blazers rumors, the events of Saturday night were a reminder, even to the NBA’s elite, that nobody knows what’s coming around the corner.
Buckle up.
Notes
AP Story on the trade from Tim Reynolds, featuring quotes from Durant and Booker on the trade.