The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns 134-105 at the Moda Center to claim their first regular-season win and a Billups-era victory. Here are four takeaways from Portland's landslide victory over the Western Conference champions, where every point of the game was as unbalanced as the final score showed.
Team cap
The game was a rout in every sense. The Blazers led the Suns by 36 points from beyond the three-point line, nearly twice as many as 50 three-point shots from away homes — Damien Lillard, C.J. McCollum and his teammates had just four three-point shots last season. Billups' side had just 9 turnovers, while the Suns had 15. The Suns' fast-break was just six points, while the Blazers scored 21 points in the conversion after scoring just two points in the opening.
His team was clearly unable to stop the bleeding, with Monty Williams waving a white flag at 9:42 in the fourth quarter to keep his regular players on the bench forever, with the Suns trailing 116-83. Billups didn't take long to give the Blazers bench a chance to play during garbage time, bringing in Greg Brown III and Ben McLamour with 6:25 left.
Billups didn't bend over backwards after the game. After celebrating his first victory of his career in a damp, boisterous post-match dressing room, the rookie coach finally confirmed a seemingly obvious fact: Portland reached its peak.
Billups said: "To be honest, we've done our best, we did. Our defense is doing a good job. We took care of the basketball. We focus on all the coverage. Oh my God, it's so beautiful. It looks beautiful. It's wonderful not only for me, but also for the rest of the team, who can see our ability to focus. ”
The second game of the season is not a time to think long-term, especially given that the Suns are in their second night back-to-back. The Blazers also won't shoot 21 three-pointers per night, and the Suns will probably shoot more than 32.1 percent from the field, like Cameron Johnson, Landry Shamet and Jay Crowder, who all have a lot of good performances, mostly when they meet next time.
As Billups clarified, the Blazers won't play better than Sunday. Now that the Blazers' ceiling is established, their next challenge is to scrape it off regularly.
Losing normalcy? Get what you want
McCollum was the Trail Blazers' highest-scoring player against the Suns, scoring 28 points on seemingly endless mid-range jumpers and three-pointers. In fact, he didn't have a single basket in the box, let alone in the box. But if Norman Powell doesn't hurt his left knee in the middle of the second quarter, McCollum could put Robin and Powell on a match that looks like it could continue to burn.
Powell scored 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting in 12 minutes, taking full advantage of his stature and offensive advantage over Chris Paul and Shamet. Before he was injured, Powell quickly scored eight points to extend the Trail Blazers' lead to 19 points. He limped briskly off the court and straight into the locker room, where the Blazers finally announced at halftime that he wouldn't be back for the rest of the game.
After the game, Billups did not give an update on Powell's situation, only mentioning that he had undergone an MRI examination. Obviously, losing Powell for a long time was tough for the Trail Blazers. But his absence did prompt Billups to launch Larry Nance Jr. as a center for the first time, igniting the Blazers' conversion offense and praising their bench again.
"I like our depth, I really like it," Billups said of the Blazers' downsizing lineup. "Obviously, Larry is in the No. 4 position most of the time right now because we have two really good centre-forwards; Newkich played well and Zeller was excellent for us. But in a pinch, five innings in baseball and Larry will be our weapon throughout the year. Even sometimes we have to put [Nasser Little] in 4th place, I feel comfortable. So I think it's a luxury that our team has depth, they can play multiple positions. This is our weapon. ”
Pray for Powell. Hopefully, Saturday's incident was just a scare and just a testament to the effectiveness of the various small-ball tactics the Blazers didn't have last season.
Very few people do this anymore
McCollum has been automatically jumping all night and sometimes has a good personal defense against Booker. Lillard ruthlessly attacked downhill in a blocking fashion, scoring points himself, helping teammates or forcing the opposing team to defend, which greatly improved the Blazers' ball and player movement.
Still, there's reason to believe that Anfell Simmons and Nasser Little were as good as the Trail Blazers' starting guard against the Suns — at least at some stages. While their performances on their debut night were mediocre, both played a key role in the Trail Blazers' game, knocking out the Phoenix early.
Billups praised Little for going all out, and he sometimes looked like the best player on the field, using up his physical strength when grabbing rebounds, sprinting during transitions, and finishing with strength and skill under the basket. No one has played harder and harder than Little today.
Of his seven shots, only one was in the box. With a tough catch and three shots, between two Sunguards, this impressive shot quickly became routine for Simmons.
He showed off his jump shot on many occasions, but the most exciting thing about Simmons' game was that he looked comfortable with the ball. In NBA games before this season, it wasn't a move he was able to make.
Little and Simmons weren't the way they were tonight. Only after playing for half a season will they believe this is their new normal. But even if that best-case scenario didn't happen, Little and Simmons were able to perform consecutively like Saturdays, which was very encouraging for Portland.