With just one regular starter available, the Portland Trail Blazers dropped their game against one of the NBA’s top teams on Monday night. Naturally.
Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming odds they had to contend with while playing at the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Blazers most definitely did not fold.
With a game-high 34 points and a career-high 14 assists, Anfernee Simons did everything in his power to keep his team afloat as the Blazers lost 119-114.
The Blazers trailed by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter, but they never let Minnesota pull too far ahead. To their credit, the Blazers persevered and, with 23 seconds left, managed to get back to within six. Although the Blazers were unable to finish their comeback in that amount of time, coach Chauncey Billups was happy with the effort.
“I feel so proud,” he uttered. These guys just never give up. They refuse to provide it to me. I adore it. That, in my opinion, is our team’s greatest quality overall. It really doesn’t matter who is participating. who isn’t. whom we are engaged in. It is irrelevant. We just keep working hard and having fun as a team. Simply put, I was incredibly proud of them all.
Starting in place of Deandre Ayton, guard/forward Dalano Banton scored 18 points and pulled down seven rebounds, while Duop Reath scored a career-high 26 points.
Against the NBA’s top-ranked defense (108.0 rating), the Blazers made 16 of 39 three-pointers (41%) and shot 48.9% from the field overall.
The Blazers scored 66 points in the second half, accounting for the majority of their output.
