Last season, the Portland Trail Blazers surprised many as they finished with a winning record and went all the way to the second round of the playoffs. However, it has been different this year with the team struggling to win games with some of their key players battling injuries.

One of their signings last summer, Festus Ezeli, even tried his best to fire up and motivate his teammates by giving an inspirational speech following their loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in early December. After seeing the Blazers lose their next two games, the 6-foot-11 center once again gave a pep talk but was reportedly cut short in mid-sentence by C.J. McCollum in front of the whole squad.

“After suffering a challenging, 115-107 loss to Milwaukee, Ezeli, in street clothes, addressed the team in the locker room with a stern speech centered on playing with urgency, sources told ESPN. Then two games later, after a crushing defeat in Memphis, Ezeli once again started giving a team speech, but he was cut short.”

“McCollum interrupted Ezeli in midsentence and told him that was enough, sources told ESPN.”

This is definitely not good news for the Portland faithful as their team is in the midst of a tough stretch and have lost 10 of their last 12 games. To make matters worse, All-Star point guard, Damian Lillard, has missed the past four games due to a foot injury.

If the Blazers want to turn around their fortunes this year, they must resolve their internal issues first to bring more positivity on the court. If there's any silver lining to their current situation, they still have 46 more games to play to try and win as much as possible to give them a shot at making the playoffs in mid-April.