Chauncey Billups, in an increasingly common postgame refrain during the season's early going, saved his harshest criticism for Portland Trail Blazers' starters after a dispiriting blowout loss. The bench was a lone bright spot for Portland in its ugly 145-117 loss to the short-handed Boston Celtics on Saturday night at Moda Center, an especially damning development because Billups' team was missing three rotational cogs.
It wasn't the now-familiar downsized lineup with Larry Nance at center, Nassir Little at power forward and one or both of their star guards that helped keep the Blazers afloat—no matter how briefly—in wake of another painfully slow start. The quintet of Dennis Smith Jr., Ben McLemore, Tony Snell, Nance and Cody Zeller provided that much-needed jolt of energy and intensity against Boston, thoroughly out-playing Portland's opening five on both sides of the ball.
Billups, notably mild-mannered over his first six weeks as a head coach, couldn't hold back from airing his frustration in the halftime locker room after watching the Blazers' reserves fight to keep their team competitive.
“We've been making a habit of that, playing really soft at the start of games, and we depend on our bench to get us back in it. A lot of times they do,” he said on the postgame podium. “Even at halftime, I just said to them, ‘I've never seen a team where we need our bench to inspire our starters, and that shit is crazy to me.' It's supposed to be the other way around.”
Still playing without Lillard on Saturday, Portland's starters hardly answered Billups' challenge in the third quarter. The Celtics dominated after intermission, playing with pace, force and continuity it appeared the Blazers' core players had no interest in matching. Portland's six-point halftime deficit was 19 entering the fourth quarter, but that didn't stop its bench units from playing with pride and intensity when the game was well out of reach.
The Blazers waived the white flag with just under six minutes remaining, bringing in deep reserves C.J. Elleby, Greg Brown III, Trendon Watford and Keljin Blevins. Even extended garbage time, though, ended up being further indication of this team's increasingly dire straits. Rip City native Payton Pritchard scored 16 of Boston's last 18 points over a three-minute stretch late in the game, a buest of shot-making so impressive the Celtics' bench was called for a technical foul while celebrating it in joyful hysterics.
Billups, an NBA lifer, made no secret of his displeasure with Boston showing up the Blazers in the meaningless moments of a game that had long been decided. What really angered him weren't the Celtics' overzealous antics or the passive response of Portland's young players. Again, Billups saved his most pointed ire for his starters.
“I wasn't worried about them,” he said of Elleby, Brown and company. “I was more worried and angry at the starters for putting them in that situation. So really, that's a starter, veteran issue, not a young guy issue.”
It's tough to imagine the Blazers' falling to a new nadir from here. They've been run off the floor in two straight home games sans Lillard and Little, and any hopes of them coming out with renewed vigor as a result of Neil Olshey's departure were squashed immediately after the opening tip of Saturday's game.
Lillard will miss at least Portland's next two games, versus the LA Clippers and Golden State Warriors, and the statuses of Little and Anfernee Simons are unclear. Even C.J. McCollum, who left the Celtics game early with a minor rib injury, could be limited or altogether sidelined in the immediate future. Regardless of who's available on Monday in LA, it's incumbent on Billups to make the lineup changes he's ostensibly been internalizing for weeks once Portland is finally healthy.
The full-strength starting five, consistently championed by Olshey, Billups and players themselves during the lead up 2021-22, has a +1.6 net rating this season, in just the 33rd percentile of high-minute lineups league-wide, per Cleaning the Glass. The Blazers' -5.8 net rating in first quarters this season ranks 25th overall, according to NBA.com/stats. Little has basically taken Robert Covington's crunch-time spot in the lineup of close games, and Billups is obviously not averse to closing with Nance at center—no matter what it means for Nurkic's psyche.
In a vacuum of perfect health, it would be shocking if the Blazers didn't make any lineup or rotational changes going forward. But the absence of multiple impact players is yet another obstacle in their way of turning around a season that's going off the rails. Just like a full roster is necessary to getting it back on track, so are some changes Billups can't make until his full stable of players is available.
Expect Little to take Covington's place as a starter as soon as he's healthy enough to do so. The numbers say Nurkic is by far Portland's most valuable defender this season, but his substandard interior finishing and erratic overall effort shouldn't keep his place as a starter safe. The most drastic move Billups must broach, bringing McCollum off the bench, is one that certainly wouldn't have materialized with Olshey still on the job.
Each of those prospective changes would present some of the same challenges afflicting the Blazers as currently constructed. They don't have an even close to starting-caliber wing on the bench other than Little. Those size issues would be further exacerbated if Nance supplants Nurkic to open games at center. Would starting both Little and Simons leave Portland's reserve units sapped of the energy and athleticism that's been the driving force of their success?
The specter of a more lasting personnel overhaul factors in here, too. It wouldn't exactly drive up the fading trade value of Covington, Nurkic and McCollum if they were benched for players with far inferior reputations. On the other hand, this team's physical and mental struggles are so pervasive that making such a stark statement might be worth the negative big-picture fallout.
Portland needs something to go right, and fast. No lineup change will suddenly vault this team toward a top-four seed in the Western Conference, let alone a puncher's chance at a title. But even amid sustained and ongoing organizational chaos, it's not too late for the Blazers to salvage their season—on paper, at least—with a ninth consecutive playoff berth. As it stands now, that league-leading streak seems primed to end unless Billups breaks from Portland's rotational status quo.
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