The Blazers cut their roster in half!

« One of our worst games of the season. When we came back from the break, we just weren’t ready. » Tel was Tiago Splitter’s observation coming out of the nightmare suffered in at home against the Nuggets : a loss of 54 points, with 157 units received.

On occasion moving his training to Phoenixthe interim coach waited for the reaction, stating these details that make the difference: “ Effort, defense, talking to each other, communication, not putting your head down when you make a mistake, not forgetting to fold or forget to mark… »

Facing the Suns without their main scorers (Devin Booker, Dillon Brooks and Grayson Allen), the Portland coach had a right to it all. Two days after posting their worst defensive performance of the year, their team followed up its best, allowing… half as many points as against the Nuggets.

« These last two days we have only talked about defense. I think we responded after a very bad game against the Nuggets. The boys did a phenomenal job, stayed focused, played hard and secured this win, even though we weren’t great offensively. But that’s how we have to build victories, through defense », salute Tiago Splitter.

Necessary reaction

The Blazers accomplished that in this matchup by limiting the Suns, who couldn’t score more than 20 points in each quarter, to 36% success. Donovan Klingan (4 blocks) and his partners blocked a total of 11 shots. We’re thinking specifically of this sequence in the third quarter where poor Isaiah Livers was blocked twice from the 3-point line, by Toumani Kamara, then by Robert Williams III.

« We tried to put this last match behind us. We have always had this mission in mind. We wanted revenge », notice the pivotthe author of an excellent game with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Jeremy Grant, who scored as much as he did, notes that such a reaction was necessary after the Blazers were visibly relieved from the previous game.

« It was difficult. I can’t say too much, it was a really tough game. (Coach) pushed us a little bit », describes the team veteran. This kind of defensive seriousness was all the more necessary because the guests lost Danny Avdia after only a minute of play, again hindered by his back.

« His back… he felt it again. Losing him is not easy, the team has to find solutions in attack, but defensively, everyone raised their voices », noted Splitter after limiting the Suns to an unfortunate 77 points scored. The franchise’s best defensive performance since October 2017… already on the Suns floor (76 points).