The Portland Trail Blazers are off to a promising 4-3 start. They have a new man acting as head coach on the sidelines. And they recently followed up their best win of the season last Friday with their worst loss of the season to kick off the new week.
Suffice to say, there’s a lot to get into right now about this Blazers team, and the We Like the Blazers podcast is back to discuss it all!
On this week’s episode, long-time Blazer’s Edge writer Adrian Bernecich joined co-hosts Brandon Mullen and Conor
Bergin to discuss that bad loss on Monday against the Los Angeles Lakers. Then the trio moved onto to discuss two topics Adrian recently spotlighted in his Saturday columns: the background, demeanor and coaching style of Blazers interim coach Tiago Splitter, as well as the early-season reemergence of veteran forward Jerami Grant.
On the subject of Splitter, Adrian discussed what he’s liked about the fast-paced, ball movement system the interim coach has brought to Portland.
Adrian: From what I saw in the [two Blazers games before I wrote that piece] is a lot of ball movement, a lot of passing, a lot of giving up a good shot for a great shot, and it reminded me so much of those early Spurs teams where Tiago was obviously part of a championship team, and no, this is not a championship team, but the way the ball moves, it was really pleasing to watch. … I think he’s trying to instill a selfless offensive game while kind of keeping the Billups defensive mindset on the other end of the court. You’re right, they don’t have the offensive players right now to play like those Spurs teams did 11 years ago, but I can see what he’s trying to do, and it’s objectively attractive basketball to watch.
Following the discussion on Splitter, Adrian got to take one more victory lap about his continued faith that Grant would bounce back this season (although Adrian also had to face light ribbing from the pod about small sample sizes). Convo starts at about 32 minutes:
Adrian: I did bring receipts… in three different articles over the last three months, I said I’m not worried about Jerami Grant… I think a lot of people were jumping on Jerami after a bad season, and that’s what it was: a bad season.
Brandon: A bad season, a sample size of 47 games… he had a bad year. Let me repeat that: he had a bad year. How many games has he played so far? I can almost count on one hand…
Adrian: He had a bad two-point shooting season last year… I know it’s seven games, but if he’d playing like he was last year in those seven games, I’d be deeply, deeply worried.
Adrian argued (using facts!) that what we saw last year from Grant was in fact the aberration, and what we’re seeing this year is much more about returning to his yearslong season averages.
You can find We Like the Blazers basically every week on YouTube, and wherever you find podcasts!
