Nothing like a game with some stakes to save the Trail Blazers’ season.
There were plenty of stakes built in already to Tuesday night’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers were coming off a lifeless 45-point loss to Memphis over the weekend that had many (including me) wondering if Chauncey Billups would survive the week. That’s reason enough for the team to respond, if they were going to.
But Tuesday came with even more stakes: it was the first of four group-stage games in the NBA’s second-annual in-season tournament, which I think you’re now legally obligated to call by its official name, the Emirates NBA Cup™️. What a perfect opportunity for the Blazers not just to rebound from one of their worst losses of a two-year period full of them, but to actually play for something more tangible than development and lottery balls.
If this is what they’re going to look like on a big stage with real stakes—a trip to Las Vegas for the championship game and a $500,000 cash prize per player—maybe the rebuild is in a better place than previously thought.
“I’m telling you, it’s a great thing,” Billups said. “When you play against a team that good, there’s going to be a heightened feel anyway. But this is different. The court is different, it feels different. Everything about it feels like it means more, because it does.”
The Blazers team that showed up on Tuesday was unrecognizable from the one that didn’t show up on Sunday. They hit as many three-pointers (18) as they hit in their last three games combined, which includes a 25-point loss last Friday to these same Timberwolves. Eight players scored in double figures. After the Grizzlies loss, Billups said that “everybody sucked.” After this one, he said “everyone played great.” Just about every rotation player—but especially Deni Avdija and Robert Williams III—had their best game of the season.