Trail Blazers Take Timberwolves for Granted as Winning Streak Comes to an End

📍MINNEAPOLIS — To most people, the Trail Blazers’ six-game winning streak came to an end on Saturday in a fourth quarter where they shot 3-for-22 and were outscored 38-14 by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

To the Blazers, the game was lost much earlier than that, and was lost due to something that has plagued them at other points this season: getting complacent when the other team’s best player is out.

“The fourth quarter was awful,” head coach Chauncey Billups said afterwards. “But I thought we lost the game in the first quarter, to be honest with you. We took some really difficult shots when we didn’t need to, knowing this is a really big-time defensive team. We settled for some tough shots and it threw our chemistry off a little. We were up 13 at the half and I literally felt like we were down 14 points, just the way the game was going.”

With Anthony Edwards out with a hip injury, the Wolves got 30 points from Jaden McDaniels, 23 from Naz Reid and 21 from Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Before the game, Billups warned that a superstar not playing doesn’t always mean a game is going to be easy.

“All you can do is talk about it,” he said.

That happened to the Blazers once earlier this year, in one of their worst losses of the season at home to Utah in December. Lauri Markkanen was a late scratch, and Billups contended after that game that when a player that so much of the scouting report is built around is suddenly gone, teams can be slow to adjust.

“Players step up into that role,” Deni Avdija said. “It makes it easier, but a little bit harder, too. There’s a guy you don’t need to focus on anymore, but all the other guys have the green light to be more aggressive. You don’t know where it’s going to come from.”

That’s exactly what happened to the Blazers at the Target Center on Saturday.

“I just don’t think we took them seriously enough,” Billups said. “This is what happens. Just because a guy plays a certain role, when a star player is out that doesn’t mean he can’t go get 30. And we didn’t quite believe that today. Tough lesson.”

Billups thought the Blazers’ defense all night, even before the nightmare fourth quarter, was “just OK.” But they did hold the Timberwolves under 30 points in each of the first three quarters. Robert Williams III was massively impactful on that end in his first-half shift before exiting the game with a knee injury (the early word is that it’s not anything serious). Scoot Henderson also had a terrific second-half defensive shift. But the communication and, to use the Blazers’ favorite word, “connectivity” wasn’t there the way it was during the winning streak.

Even still, they led by double digits going into the half.

“In my head, I was like, ‘We’ll take it,’” Anfernee Simons said. “We’re on a win streak, every game isn’t going to look pretty. But in the fourth quarter, we couldn’t hit shots. We played good enough to give us a chance to win the game. We held them to 93 points with seven minutes left, we’ll take it. We played good enough defense to stay in the game, we just couldn’t hit shots.”

It’s a testament to the way the Blazers have played for the past two weeks that a loss like this is something to be upset about, and not par for the course for this time of year. Even in the letdown game, they weren’t played off the floor.

“People forget we’re a young team,” Avdija said. “We’re still growing and maturing as players. This is part of a young team. You learn from mistakes and sometimes it’s not going to be perfect. That’s what it takes to reach the highest levels.”