All 82 Games of the 2024-25 Trail Blazers Season, Ranked

There are many ways to wrap up a season, especially one as eventful as the 2024-25 Trail Blazers.

A season that was supposed to be similar to last year's 21-win campaign ended with an unexpected play-in push. These 82 games packed in a lot—some good, some very bad.

So let's rank them.

This is a list I kept throughout the season and updated after every game. Now, I'm publishing it for you to put a button on the season as we head into what should be a big summer for a team that has now put postseason expectations on itself for next season. I'm making it free for everyone, as a thank-you gift for my readers.

With that said, we're three weeks out from the draft lottery, when we will find out where the Blazers will be picking. As I am every year, I will be making the trip to Chicago for the lottery and the predraft combine, and then to Las Vegas in July for Summer League. Paid subscribers help considerably with that travel. With a busy offseason coming up, now is as good a time as any to jump on board.

82. Nov. 10 vs. Memphis (L, 134-89)

We start with the undisputed low point of the season. This was a game the Blazers completely no-showed, across the board, against a version of the Grizzlies missing both Ja Morant and Desmond Bane. It was as bad as either one of the 60-point losses they had last season, even though the final margin was "only" 45 points. Afterwards, Chauncey Billups called the loss "fucking embarrassing" and told us, on the record, that he told his team, "Anybody who sleeps well tonight, you're a loser." I thought he was going to be fired that week, and he may have been if they didn't win their next three to save the season from going off the rails.

81. Oct. 23 vs. Golden State (L, 140-104)
The biggest opening-night loss in franchise history, and Billups said afterwards that he "didn't think one guy on our team played well tonight." Hell of a way to start the season. (Making matters worse, a day later, the NBA issued a correction on a De'Anthony Melton free throw that wasn't scored, and retroactively made the final margin of defeat 36 rather than 35.)

80. Dec. 6 vs. Utah (L, 141-99)
Portland's second 40-point home loss of the season wasn't quite as bad as the one against the Grizzlies, but it wasn't far off. The explanation afterwards was also a tough sell: you see, Lauri Markkanen was a late scratch with an injury, Billups said afterwards, and it threw the Blazers off their game plan and caused them to lose by 42 to one of the NBA's worst teams.

79. Feb. 10 at Denver (L, 147-117)
Getting run off the floor in Denver and losing Deandre Ayton for the season to a calf injury is tough.

78-77. Jan. 16 vs. L.A. Clippers (L, 104-75); Jan. 18 vs. Houston (L, 125-103)
Immediately before the winning started, the vibes could not have been worse, with two bad losses against playoff teams defined by an inability to make shots or defend. These games closing out the first half of the season, a 41-game sample of a team with the NBA's fourth-worst offense and third-worst defense, was only fitting. Things took a sharp turn for the better 24 hours later.

76. Nov. 22 at Houston (L, 116-88)
This would have been just another run-of-the-mill road blowout loss against a contender for the early-season version of the Blazers, except that it was an Emirates NBA Cup™️ game, so the stakes were higher. They won their first Cup game against Minnesota, and it would have been fun if they could have made a run. But, remember, point differential is one of the factors in determining Cup standings. Losing a Cup game by 28 is tough to come back from in the group stage, and their hopes of a trip to Las Vegas in December were dead on arrival. Maybe next year.

75-74. Mar. 16 vs. Toronto (W, 105-102); Mar. 17 vs. Washington (W, 112-97)
Two wins the Blazers needed as they were still chasing the play-in by that point, but two of the most shameless displays of tanking by opponents I saw this year. The Raptors pulled Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl when they were leading by six in the middle of the fourth quarter, and the Wizards didn't play No. 2 overall pick Alex Sarr past the midway point of the third quarter. All of this stuff is just a dance teams do to achieve the lottery results they want while avoiding getting fined by the league office like Utah did for sitting Markkanen, but it's very stupid and insulting to fans.

73-65. Mar. 27 at Sacramento (L, 128-107); Mar. 30 at New York (L, 110-93); Apr. 1 at Atlanta (W, 127-113); Apr. 3 at Toronto (W, 112-103); Apr. 4 at Chicago (L, 118-113); Apr. 6 vs. San Antonio (W, 120-109); Apr. 8 at Utah (L, 133-126, OT); Apr. 11 vs. Golden State (L, 103-86); Apr. 13 vs. L.A. Lakers (W, 109-81)
When the Blazers embarked on their final five-game road trip, their play-in hopes were already on life support following losses at home to Cleveland and Boston. By the end of the trip, Anfernee Simons was shut down for the season and Scoot Henderson had suffered a concussion. The final two-and-a-half weeks of the season were completely pointless and could have been simmed to end. The Chicago and Utah games in particular featured some hilarious, half-hearted attempts by the Blazers at the exact same kind of tanking shenanigans the Raptors and Wizards pulled in Portland, too late for it to really matter in the lottery standings.

64-53. Oct. 28 at Sacramento (L, 111-98); Nov. 2 at Phoenix (L, 103-97)Nov. 7 at San Antonio (L, 118-105); Nov. 8 at Minnesota (L, 127-102); Nov. 25 at Memphis (L, 123-98); Dec. 3 at L.A. Clippers (L, 127-105); Dec. 8 at L.A. Lakers (107-98); Dec. 15 at Phoenix (L, 116-109); Dec. 21 at San Antonio (L, 114-94); Dec. 23 at Dallas (L, 132-106); Jan. 2 at L.A. Lakers (L, 110-106); Jan. 9 at Dallas (L, 117-111)
A lot of these first-half road losses run together, so I'm going to take this opportunity to show you the three best jerseys I saw this season.

52-51. Mar. 7 at Oklahoma City (L, 107-89); Nov. 1 vs. Oklahoma City (L, 137-114)
The Blazers didn't fare much better against the NBA's best team than anybody else did. The first game against Oklahoma City in early November was particularly dispiriting: after being tied at halftime, they had 12 turnovers leading to 19 Thunder points in the third quarter alone. You can't come back from that against a normal team, let alone the favorite to come out of the west. The last of their four meetings, in March, saw the Thunder rest their entire regular starting lineup and still outclass a team on the back end of a seven-game road trip.

50. Nov. 20 at Oklahoma City (L, 109-99)
They were more competitive the second time they played the Thunder than they were the first time, but this one was still a bummer because during pregame warmups, Matisse Thybulle—who was expected to be cleared to play later that week in Houston after missing training camp with a knee injury—suffered a particularly bad ankle sprain that kept him from making his season debut until mid-March. This game also saw Scoot Henderson suffer a quad injury that kept him out for several games.

49. Dec. 30 vs. Philadelphia (L, 125-103)
The only positive thing I can say is that if you went to this game, you got to see Joel Embiid play in person for just the fourth time in his career in Portland. He and Ja Morant are the two superstars who never seem to be available when their teams play here.

48. Feb. 20 vs. L.A. Lakers (L, 108-102)
Speaking of stars not playing in Portland, Luka Doncic sat this one out for the Lakers, supposedly for calf injury management. He played the game prior and the game following this one. The Lakers beat the Blazers anyway.

47. Mar. 5 at Boston (L, 128-118)
The Celtics were without Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porzingis? No problem—Payton Pritchard and Derrick White went off for 40 points each.

46. Jan. 11 vs. Miami (L, 119-98)
They made a run in the second half of this one but fell short. 21 points off the bench from Nikola Jovic led to some really embarrassing tweets from various Miami-based media members about a trade that never happened, that they're apparently still not sick of talking about. Donovan Clingan scored an own-basket, which has to rank highly on his "welcome to the league" rookie moments.

45. Feb. 8 at Minnesota (L, 114-98)
The end of the 10-1 stretch was another instance of the Blazers not taking a team missing their best player (in this case, Anthony Edwards) seriously enough. They led by 13 at the half and then melted down, shooting 3-for-22 in the fourth quarter and getting outscored 38-14. Not a good one.

44. Mar. 10 at Golden State (L, 130-120)
The end of the most grueling stretch of the Blazers' schedule this season. After coming back from a seven-game road trip, they played a game at home against Detroit and then flew to the Bay Area for a back-to-back. It was effectively a nine-game road trip where one of the games happened to be in their own building. They didn't have a shot against the Warriors. But Deni Avdija had one of his best games of the year, a 34-point, 16-rebound, 6-assist performance with five made three-pointers.

43. Dec. 13 vs. San Antonio (L, 118-116)
In one night, the Blazers showed they can come back from big deficits (they trailed by 10 at the half) and blow big leads (they were by 17 in the fourth quarter). One of the weirder games of the year in that regard.

42. Nov. 27 at Indiana (L, 121-114)

This is the point in the list where you can start saying positive things about these games, even the ones the Blazers lost. Before they started the second-half play-in push, respectable losses to good teams was the goal, and that's what the Blazers delivered here. This one was notable for being one of Henderson's best games of the first half of the season (before he started playing well regularly), a controlled, low-mistake performance with 17 points, three 3-pointers, nine assists and only one turnover. He missed the next four games after re-aggravating a quad injury he suffered earlier on the road trip, so he wasn't able to capitalize on it until later.

41-36. Jan. 8 at New Orleans (W, 119-100); Jan. 23 at Orlando (W, 121-79); Jan. 24 at Charlotte (W, 102-97); Feb. 24 at Utah (W, 114-112); Feb. 28 at Brooklyn (W, 121-102); Mar. 2 at Philadelphia (W, 119-102)
A collection of road wins against the NBA's worst teams (plus the injury-ravaged Magic) that fell somewhere between good developmental wins and detrimental ones to their lottery chances.

35. Feb. 12 at Denver (L, 132-121)
The Blazers limped into the All-Star break on a three-game losing streak and gave up 55 points to Jamal Murray. But Clingan, moving into the starting lineup permanently in the aftermath of Ayton's season-ending calf injury, had a 17-point, 20-rebound, 3-block night, one of the best games of his rookie season.

34-33. Mar. 23 vs. Boston (L, 129-116); Mar. 25 vs. Cleveland (L, 122-111)
Decent-enough efforts in back-to-back games against the two best teams in the Eastern Conference effectively shut the door on the Blazers' play-in dream, even though they weren't mathematically eliminated until after getting back from the subsequent five-game road trip.

32. Jan. 26 vs. Oklahoma City (L, 118-108)
The lone loss in the 10-1 stretch that turned the Blazers' season around was a totally defensible one given the opponent. It was also an encouraging one given that the three best individual performances of the night came from arguably the three most important players to their future: Avdija (28 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, a steal and a block), Camara (24 points and 9 rebounds) and Henderson (25 points off the bench).

31. Feb. 26 at Washington (W, 129-121)

30. Nov. 29 vs. Sacramento (W, 115-106)
The Blazers picked up a win against the Kings the day after Thanksgiving to keep their faint Emirates NBA Cup™️ hopes alive. This game would rank higher if Taze Moore had gotten in and pulled off the rare G League-NBA doubleheader after playing in the Rip City Remix's game earlier that day.

29. Oct. 30 at L.A. Clippers (W, 106-105)
One of the earliest indications this season that, at their best, the Blazers could hang with good teams, especially defensively. And some rare non-garbage time minutes in the first half of the year for Rayan Rupert, who had seven points in seven minutes.

28-27. Oct. 25 vs. New Orleans (L, 105-103); Oct. 27 vs. New Orleans (W, 125-103)
Coming off the embarrassing opening-night showing against the Warriors, the Blazers played a two-game set at home against the Pelicans, who at that point hadn't had their season submarined by injuries yet. They lost the first one on a last-second shot by Brandon Ingram, and won the second one handily for their first win of the season. Together, they were a much more representative pair of games for what the Blazers hoped to be this season than the Golden State faceplant a few days earlier.

26. Nov. 4 at New Orleans (W, 118-100)

The legend of "D.B. Hooper" was born this night in New Orleans early in the season when Dalano Banton played the entire fourth quarter, and only the fourth quarter, and scored 20 points in those 12 minutes. One of the cooler and, more importantly, organically created viral nicknames in recent NBA history—all credit goes to Kaylie aka Basketghoul, who also created Hand Fruit Nation and Toumania.

25. Dec. 1 vs. Dallas (L, 137-131)
Every so often, Simons can get on a Damian Lillard-like heater. It's especially noticeable on nights like this one, when he wasn't able to do much in the first half due to foul trouble. But he scored 24 of his 27 points in the third quarter and almost singlehandedly led the Blazers to a comeback against the Mavericks, who at the time hadn't yet had their season derailed by making the decision to trade Luka Doncic. Doncic had 36 points, 7 rebounds and 13 assists in this game. I'm thinking maybe the Mavs should have kept him.

24-23. Dec. 26 vs. Utah (W, 122-120); Dec. 28 vs. Dallas (W, 126-122)
These were the two games Nate Bjorkgren filled in as head coach while Billups attended his grandmother's funeral, and the Blazers won both of them. At this point in the year, before the winning started, Billups was still getting booed loudly during player introductions before every home game, and Bjorkgren got the same treatment out of force of habit when he was introduced at these two games. By the second game, a lot of fans that clearly weren't up to speed on how Bjorkgren's previous stint as a head coach had gone were clamoring for him to replace Billups.

22-21. Jan. 6 at Detroit (L, 118-115); Mar. 9 vs. Detroit (L, 119-112)
The Pistons were one of the NBA's best stories this season, winning 30 more games than last year. It's a good example of a best-case scenario for the Blazers, because they didn't change that much about their roster from the 14-win team they were last year, and a lot of their improvement came from Cade Cunningham finally making the leap into an All-Star and franchise player. The Blazers have to hope one of their guys makes that same leap next year. In any case, they hung with Detroit in both of these games.

The game in Portland in March was also Bill Walton Tribute Night, which was fun. They even got a Grateful Dead cover band to perform at halftime.

20-19. Feb. 4 vs. Indiana (W, 112-89); Feb. 6 vs. Sacramento (W, 108-102)
The final two wins of the 10-1 stretch that turned the Blazers' season around, and the last two wins they got against play-in or playoff teams for almost six weeks.

18. Nov. 17 vs. Atlanta (W, 114-107)
Capping off a week that saved the season, the Blazers picked up their third win in a row and got some great performances from the young guys in the process. Camara locked up Trae Young in a late possession that sealed the win, Sharpe scored 32 points and Robert Williams III showed why the Blazers could never quite bring themselves to trade him despite the injury risk. Going from a 45-point blowout loss to a three-game winning streak over one homestand was the season in miniature.

17. Nov. 23 at Houston (W, 104-98)

A rare road win against a good team, and an awesomely weird stat line for Clingan: 0 points and 19 rebounds. A player grabbing at least that many boards without scoring has only happened 15 times in NBA history, and only eight times by players not named Dennis Rodman (who had games of 28, 25 and 24 rebounds with no points in the span of three weeks in 1993 when he was with the Spurs). The last player who did it before Clingan was Omer Asik, 12 years earlier. The other players who have done it: Marcus Camby (twice, including once with the Blazers in 2012), Reggie Evans, James Donaldson, Clyde Lee and Happy Hamilton.

16. Mar. 21 vs. Denver (W, 128-109)
Did this game get Michael Malone fired? The deep dives on the dysfunction in Denver published recently by both ESPN and The Athletic pointed to Malone's brutally honest postgame comments about his players' effort against the Blazers as the moment it was evident the coach had completely lost the locker room.

15. Feb. 1 vs. Phoenix (W, 127-108)
This one is mostly memorable to me because the final minutes took place as news of the Luka Doncic trade first broke. The NBA has never seen anything like that trade, and I've never seen anything like the scene at Moda Center as that game closed out. Damion Lee found out about it from a fan during a free-throw timeout with about 90 seconds remaining and immediately began telling the players and referees on the court and both benches.

In the Blazers' locker room afterwards, players were still processing it just like everyone else was. Ayton very excitedly and colorfully told us the story of the night his then-Suns teammates Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson found out they were being traded to Brooklyn for Kevin Durant out of the blue. It was a fun day at the office.

14. Dec. 19 vs. Denver (W, 122-120)
The Blazers won this one on a Simons buzzer-beater, the first time they'd won a game in that manner at home since Game 5 of the series against the Thunder in 2019. You might remember that one. Simons does. So does Russell Westbrook, who was with the Thunder at the time and with the Nuggets for this one. And he was the one guarding Simons on that final shot. Beyond that, this was the best the Blazers looked start-to-finish of any game in the first two months of the season.

13. Jan. 21 at Miami (W, 116-107)
As it would happen, this ended up being the final game Jimmy Butler ever played in a Heat uniform in the midst of his year of suspensions, "quiet quitting" and an eventual trade to Golden State.

12. Jan. 4 at Milwaukee (W, 105-102)
The Blazers' visit to Milwaukee unfolded the same way it did last year, except this time, the Blazers held on to win. Camara did an awesome job on Lillard defensively, holding him to 16 points on 5-of-15 shooting. Lillard wishes he ever had a defender like that to play with in his 11 seasons here.

11. Jan. 14 vs. Brooklyn (L, 132-114)
Losing by 18 at home to a bad Nets team isn't great, even back in the part of the season when we still thought these guys were tanking. What gives this game a placement just outside the top 10 is what it meant for the trajectory of Henderson's season, and maybe his career. The 39 points was a career high, and the eight made three-pointers are an outlier. But leading into that game, Henderson was shooting 39.9 percent from the field and 29.9 percent from three-point range in 31 games; starting with that night, he's shot 43.3 percent from the field and 38.4 percent from deep in 35 games. If you want to point to one game where the turnaround started, it's this one. Henderson may never be the franchise point guard he was sold as on draft night in 2023, but the Blazers feel much better about his future now than they did at the beginning of the season. It all traces back to this game.

10. Mar. 2 at Cleveland (L, 133-129, OT)
Yes, the Cavs were without Donovan Mitchell. Still, in the middle of a seven-game road trip against the best team in the east, the Blazers should never have even been in this game. They eventually let the Cavs come back, and lost in overtime. If they'd won, it would be even higher on the list. But it was one of their most impressive performances of the year. Avdija had his first career triple-double, too.

9. Jan. 19 vs. Chicago (W, 113-102)
Also known as the night the Blazers' season turned. Billups pulled Sharpe from the starting lineup, saying he wanted to challenge him to be better defensively, and by the end of the season, it worked. The Blazers won this game, kicking off a 10-1 stretch and a 23-18 second half to the season in which they had the league's third-best defense.

8-7. Nov. 12 vs. Minnesota (W, 122-108); Nov. 13 vs. Minnesota (W, 106-98)

If the Bulls win was the night the Blazers turned their season around, these back-to-back wins over the Timberwolves were the night they saved it. Coming off the 45-point loss to Memphis, it was a real question whether big changes were in store if they didn't start competing. They did.

The first game had double the stakes, because it was the first group-stage game of the Emirates NBA Cup™️. The Blazers won that one handily behind big performances from Henderson and Williams, as well as Avdija's best game as a Blazer to that point. The second game was a different set of contributors, with Sharpe exploding for 33 points and Clingan going toe-to-toe with Rudy Gobert.

It wasn't just that they picked up two wins to stop the bleeding after one of the worst losses in recent memory. Taken together, these 24 hours were a rare early glimpse of the way they started playing most nights in the second half of the season.

6. Feb. 3 vs. Phoenix (W, 121-119, OT)
First overtime game of the season? Check. A win over what we still thought at the time was a good team in the Suns? Check. Ayton's best game as a Blazer so far? Check. (25 points and 20 rebounds.) Not a lot not to like about this one.

5. Jan. 28 vs. Milwaukee (W, 125-112)
If I'd done a ranking of last season, Lillard's homecoming would have been far and away the top spot, without any discussion. There were some similarities this year. It was the Blazers' only nationally televised game of the season, Lillard's performance was neither memorable nor bad, and the young Blazers came out victorious over the franchise's all-time leading scorer.

This year, without the tribute videos and other fanfare, it felt like just another game. It also wasn't the only time the Blazers looked this good against a good team, which wasn't the case last year.

4. Feb. 22 vs. Charlotte (W, 141-88)
Even against a truly awful team like Charlotte, when you win by 53, it has to go in the top five. Lillard, Walton, Clyde Drexler and Brandon Roy never won by 50-plus in a Blazers uniform.

3. Jan. 30 vs. Orlando (W, 119-90)
This was the night the winning streak stopped feeling like a cute story and started feeling like legitimate progress. This was a relatively healthy version of the Magic (both Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner played), and the Blazers ran them out of the building. It was a defensive masterpiece from Camara, the latest in a string of good performances from Henderson, and the second game in a row they won against a playoff team.

2. Mar. 19 vs. Memphis (W, 115-99)
The play-in possibility never felt more real than it did on this night. They won their previous two games, or more accurately, the opponents handed them the wins on purpose (see #75-74). To this point, they hadn't beaten a playoff team since before the trade deadline. They handled the Grizzlies in a balanced two-way performance that Billups called "one of our most complete games, wire-to-wire." Avdija cooled off after his 24-point first half, but Duop Reath gave them big minutes off the bench and Sharpe turned in one of his best defensive performances of the year. Following this win, the Blazers were just two games out of the play-in, the closest they got during the second-half run.

1. Mar. 12 vs. New York (L, 114-113, OT)

Even though they lost in overtime on a Mikal Bridges buzzer-beater, this was the game of the year for the Blazers, and one of the best of the season across the entire league.

More than that, it was one of the tightest games...ever. It featured the second-most lead changes (42) of any game since the NBA began tracking play-by-play data in 1996. Funnily enough, the only game with more was a Nets-Hawks game last season, which also ended on a Bridges buzzer-beater.

Henderson didn't quite reach his career high (30 points in this one), but he might have played the best offensive game of his career as the Blazers hung with the Knicks for 53 minutes. Avdija made huge plays both at the end of regulation and in overtime to put the Blazers in position to win.

This team hasn't played many games over the past few years that light up social media outside of Portland. This was one of those.

Beyond that, this game was also preceded by the feel-good moment of the season: Natalie Zito, the 13-year-old girl who forgot the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a playoff game in 2003 and was saved by then-Blazers coach Maurice Cheeks, was back 22 years later for redemption, with Cheeks in the building as a Knicks assistant. This time, she killed it.

Across the board—on and off the court—a banner night for the Blazers. It had everything but a win.