Shorthanded Trail Blazers Seeing Progress in Competitive Losses to Contenders

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Two months ago, the Trail Blazers played Minnesota and Oklahoma City consecutively to finish out a seven-game road trip. They lost those games by a combined 85 points.

This week, they once again faced the two best teams in the Western Conference in back-to-back games. They lost both, but the feeling was different.

This time, even while extremely shorthanded, the Blazers gave both the Timberwolves and the Thunder a scare. They got big performances from some of the young players they want to develop, like Kris Murray and Rayan Rupert. And if you’re invested in such things, the two losses didn’t hurt their lottery odds, either.

As stretch runs of lost seasons go, this is far preferable—and more watchable—than the last two years at this time.

“Team development-wise, you see it as a quote-unquote ‘win’ in the aspect of keeping it close,” Anfernee Simons said after Wednesday’s 128-120 loss to Oklahoma City. “As a competitor, you’re like, ‘Nah, forget that, I want to win.’ But as a team, I think we played good enough to win.”

The Blazers got their fourth and final look at the ruthlessly efficient and clinical Thunder, who got a combined 61 points on 20-of-38 shooting from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams. Oklahoma City’s shot-making was impressive, just as it was the first time they played in Portland earlier in the season. But Murray and Rupert, in one of the toughest assignments either of the rookies have gotten in their short NBA careers, held their own defensively and made the Thunder’s stars work for what they got.

When a team like the Thunder comes into the Moda Center now, it’s probably a win, but it’s not an easy win anymore. That’s an improvement from where things were in January.

“I tell our guys all the time, ‘Nobody gives you respect in this league. You’ve got to go earn it,’” Chauncey Billups said. “When teams come in here, they should have to play really good to beat us. No matter if they have our record or have one of the best records in the league, they should feel like they have to play really hard to beat us. If that happens, we did our job.”

With just over a month left in the season, the Blazers are starting to get healthy. Scoot Henderson is trending towards a return this weekend, either Friday against Houston or Saturday against Toronto, after missing the last seven games with an adductor injury. Deandre Ayton may also be back soon. There’s even talk that the core surgery Shaedon Sharpe had last month won’t be the end of his season—the organization wants to get him back on the floor for the final 5-10 games of the year, assuming he’s cleared.

If they get those three back, it probably won’t lead to more wins, but it will at least lead to more of a reason to watch the final month of the season. But compared to six weeks ago, when they were coming off that nightmare road trip, the organizational feeling about where the Blazers stand is night and day.

“No matter who plays, we play the right way, and that’s what I want,” Billups said. “I’m very happy with where we are and the progress being made.”