Call your parents. Bug your friends. Tell your coworkers at the water-cooler. Alert your neighbors in passing as you take out the trash. Bang pots and pans. Spread the word.
The Portland Trail Blazers are the best show in town again, and the Moda Center, located at 1 N Center Ct St, is the place to be. A rousing back-to-back sweep of the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday and Wednesday solidified it. The memo seemed to wash over and electrify the home crowd in attendance over the past two days.
Something special could be brewing with this group. At the very least, something worth your attention.
Because your Trail Blazers are rolling at 8-3 and playing with soul again. With that, after years of a semi-dormant atmosphere compared with the lofty standards of heydays before it, the Moda Center is coming alive.
“That’s what’s great about this start is the fact that this fanbase, this building, it gets jumping,” Blazers head coach Micah Nori said after the 118-108 win on Wednesday. “They appreciate hard play. They appreciate good basketball. And hopefully, they’ll continue to come out and support, because it is one heck of an advantage in this building, for damn sure.”
A big part of the vibes revival is the Damian Lillard Effect. I mean, look at this play and listen to the crowd pop.
But what’s happening here is so much more than the return of a franchise icon.
There’s bonafide All-Star Deni Avdija, a 6-foot-8 point-forward, who shoots out of a canon on fast breaks and attacks the defense like a running back. The relentless Toumani Camara is hailed by Lillard as “All-World, First-Team All-Defense — point-blank, period.” They’ve got a 7-foot-2 giant with a mean streak named Donovan Clingan swatting away shots in the middle and gobbling up rebounds. Jrue Holiday, a two-time NBA Champion and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, is getting buckets off the bench. The spirited Sidy Cissoko continues to elevate his underdog story to new heights. Robert Williams III, nicknamed The Time Lord, springs for alley oops like a pogo stick while being as cool as they come. One of the team’s biggest star attractions, Ja Morant, is injured but will be back at a later date to add to the entertainment (and while we’re thinking positive, don’t count out young guard Scoot Henderson just yet as he battles early-season struggles).
The Blazers are getting contributions up and down the roster, while a rookie head coach plucked straight out of an inspirational sports movie pulls the strings. Study the names. Get to know this team. See how they play. Notice the sharing, the defense, the leadership. There’s collective talent, but also a collective buy-in.
“When your heart is pure and your heart is in the right place, it’s funny how good things happen for you,” Nori said Tuesday after the first win over OKC. “And quite honestly, that locker room, that’s the way they all are.”
“You can see it on the stat sheet almost every night,” Avdija said following the second OKC win. “We’re sharing the ball. Everybody’s eating. Everybody’s playing great, and any given night, somebody can have a big game.”
The second win over OKC on Wednesday showcased that collective buy-in as much as any of Portland’s first eight wins. After the Lillard third-quarter flurry boosted Portland to a comfortable 20-point win 24 hours earlier, nothing came easy in the rematch. The Blazers stayed the course anyway to grind out a 118-108 win.
“You lose the two that we lost [0ver the weekend],” Lillard said, “and then you come back against a great team like this, and you win a fun one last night, and then you come back and get a tough one — I think that shows the character of the team.”
With about four minutes left in the fourth quarter of a 99-99 game on Wednesday, during one extended Portland possession, the group kept almost landing a momentum-shifting play. First, the team worked it around for an Avdija open 3-pointer that hung on the rim and bounced twice before deciding to spill out. Then, it looked like OKC center Isaiah Hartenstein corralled the rebound, until a tangled-up Clingan smacked at it with his right hand — a powerful and clean swipe that popped the ball into his grasp. This time, Clingan tossed the ball out to a wide-open Lillard for 3 as the crowd rose in anticipation, only for that attempt to thud off the rim. As the ball floated in the air, Cissoko parachuted in for an ambitious tip-slam attempt that he couldn’t finish…but he was fouled by Hartenstein. It was a high-adrenaline, high-octane sequence that ultimately awarded Portland with two free throws. Cissoko calmly sunk them both to take back the lead for good.
The play typified the perseverance the Blazers displayed all night to keep swinging even when the home-run hits weren’t connecting. And the crowd, ready to explode, was still enthralled by the fight.
“What it says about the squad?” Avdija said in the postgame press conference, mulling over a reporter’s question about what this two-game sweep of the Thunder says about the team. “That we’re good.”
Avdija’s simple, matter-of-fact answer caused him to chuckle a little. Then he continued with more detail:
“We respond. We fight. And even if we lose, it’s gonna be a fight every night. … I really think it’s a special squad. We have great players. We have a great coaching staff. We have great staff all around. It’s still very early in the season, and we might have some downs. I’m not gonna say we’re gonna be all perfect and we’re gonna win 80 games or 70 games. But we’re sticking together even in our losses, and we show character. And I think that’s the most important [thing].”
The Blazers now embark on a tough, two-week road trip. Get together with your people and watch some games on the television when they’re away. Then get yourself a ticket to the show when they return.
