The Portland Trail Blazers’ bench is completely different when Matisse Thybulle plays.
What we saw from him yesterday in the Blazers’ 20-point win over a tired, but still formidable Golden State Warriors team was a masterclass in defensive disruption, and his near-team-high +22 in just 15 minutes didn’t feel aberrational or misleading.
On the latest We Like the Blazers podcast, Conor Bergin and I chatted about the news of the day (yes, that), but we also set aside some time to give Thybulle his flowers,
both for who he is as a player and as a person (Thybulle convo starts at 42:38), including Thybulle’s response to being asked about whether the team was distracted by the news that head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested and suspended from coaching:
Conor: Matisse Thybulle, who is becoming one of my my favorite interviews, he spoke with reporters in the locker room. Which, a little a little peek behind the reporting curtains and something that I’m learning, in the locker room you get much better and more layered answers and more detailed answers than you do at the podium as a part of the press conference. It’s a lot more casual.
Brandon: Something about being naked that really makes you put your guard down, Conor!
Conor: Clothes all were on. But [Matisse] kind of he he addressed [whether the Blazers were distracted by the Chauncey Billups news and suspension] straight up. I didn’t lead with that premise, but people were were talking to him about it, and he basically said, ‘I feel like the media is trying to make this huge thing that we are this team that’s going through this big burden, and we have to overcome it and rally together,‘ and he basically was like, ‘this is basketball. This is our jobs. We’re always going through stuff that a lot of you don’t even know about and like we all just compartmentalize it and tap in…’
Brandon: I want to say something about that. If you told me that in a vacuum that these events happened and then one of the players made those comments, I’d be like ‘bull****.’ But coming from Matisse Thybulle, knowing him a little bit and also hearing how he talked about that specifically, I believe him. And also, Matisse Thybulle, just… what a cool dude, and really great to see him healthy and on the court… and there was one [play against the Warriors] where I rewound it to watch him specifically where he was like at the other side of the court, and you could just see that he was tracking exactly what was happening. His body was positioned in a non-threatening way. But the second, the SECOND that the opponent passed the ball, he went *spring!* and just snapped and stole it. And it was just like, dude, how cool.
Conor: He’s like a cat, you know?
Brandon: Totally! 100% like a cat. He might actually be a cat. Have we checked? Has anyone done a DNA test to see if Matisse Thybulle is, in fact, a cat?
Conor: He at least got some some cat DNA.
Chatting about cats, the Blazers’ defense, a good win, the start to a promising season, an unbelievable crime story involving the mafia and an arrest of a sitting NBA coach by the FBI… this podcast’s got it all! Find We like the Blazers on any podcatcher, and of course on YouTube.
