What is the story about?
Before
the Portland Trail Blazers fly to San Francisco for their preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night, the team got in one more practice Tuesday morning in Tualatin.
Following the practice, Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and guard Jrue Holiday met with media to discuss the preseason slate and other storylines. Here are five quick hitters from the interviews.
- Billups told reporters he plans to experiment with different starting lineups and rotations throughout Portland’s four preseason games. He issued the warning not to put too much weight on what those decisions and lineups mean for the regular season rotation: “I’ll just rotate it all [during the preseason]. There’s no reason to read into anything, man. I’m just kinda looking at different rotations, looking at how it’s going.”
- Billups said he usually stuck with a nine-man regular rotation in previous seasons, but this year that will go up to 10 or 11 players: “This will be a little different for me, how we’re going to play this year. Because I’ll play more guys this year based on how we want to play.”
- Billups also said the team doesn’t plan to sit players for full games during the preseason. Instead, he’ll find rest for them during games with how he assigns minutes. For example, he said Holiday won’t play in the second half during the Warriors on Wednesday.
- With the preseason slate being shorter than it used to be, Holiday said these upcoming games are more important: “At least for me, I don’t necessarily have to play the full game, but to get reps, to get rhythm against different teams, different plays and different play styles is very important, especially in the West or even on a team where we’re very guard-heavy and everybody needs to get a rhythm.”
- Holiday also gave his evaluation of where the team stands right now: “Very confident. We play very fast. We play very hard, and we play a lot of defense, so I think we’re in a good spot.”
The Blazers tip off against the Warriors on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. PDT.
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