On January 10, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, with the Blazers hosting the Kings. Despite being absent from both guns due to injury at the back, the Blazers, who had previously suffered two consecutive defeats, showed great resilience, scoring 123 points and limiting the opposing Kings to only 88 points, thus winning a big victory at home.
The Blazers were able to win the game because 22-year-old rising star Simmons was credited. In the 35 minutes he scored 31 points on 10-of-17 shooting and scored seven three-pointers on 11 outside shots. Especially in the last quarter of the game, it was a unique 15 points from the inside and outside, firmly controlling the fruits of victory.
This season's Trail Blazers can be described as a fateful fate. Instead of winning much in last year's offseason free-agent market, Bench Top Scorer Anthony traveled to Los Angeles. Entering the new season, under the new system of the new coach Billups, the performance of the players has fluctuated, not only that, the backcourt twin stars McCollum and Lillard have also been injured and fallen, coupled with the superimposed impact of the epidemic and other reasons, the personnel has reached the point of being stretched. However, in this context, the 22-year-old Simmons stepped forward in time to become the most surprising highlight of the team's predicament.
In the last four games, Lillard has watched from the sidelines, and Simmons has been given the opportunity to start. In those four games, he scored at least 25 points in 3 games, accumulated 116 points, averaging 29 points per game, in addition, he averaged 3.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game, shooting 54.3% from the field, shooting 46.7% from three-point range, and averaging 5.8 three-pointers per game, which is amazingly efficient.
As we all know, Lillard's relationship with the Blazers has been very delicate since the first round of the playoffs last season. His personal desire for a championship is increasingly emphasized, and landlady Allen doesn't seem to have much interest in it. There have been many media outlets that Lillard wants to leave Portland, and even a reporter once claimed that Lillard was secretly flirting with the team's trading backcourt partner McCollum. Although Lillard denies this, the real problem is that it is not good for each other to be consumed like this, especially in the case of Simmons's rapid growth and sudden rise, Lillard may have reached the time to hand over his authority and let go.