The Portland Trail Blazers have had a rough start in their post-All-Star break campaign. The Blazers went through quite a debacle ahead of their game against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night, which has forced their hand to sit out some of their key players for the matchup. As such, Portland will be extremely shorthanded on Thursday when they take on the third-seeded Kings.
The Blazers announced a few hours before tipoff that both Damian Lillard and Jerami Grant have been ruled out for Thursday's clash. They will now join Jusuf Nurkic, Anfernee Simons, and Justise Winslow on the sidelines, with all three players also dealing with respective injuries.
The good news here is that neither Lillard nor Grant is dealing with an injury. Both stars have been given the night off following a troublesome past 24 hours that involved adverse weather conditions and multiple flight delays. NBA insider Chris Haynes provides the details of the Blazers' travel problems ahead of Thursday's game in Sacramento:
“CONTEXT: Trail Blazers arrived at airport on Wednesday around 2:45 pm to take off for Sacramento. Stayed on plane until approximately 10 pm and headed home. Due to weather/traffic, the commute home for some players was up to two hours. Returned to airport this morning at 9 am and didn’t take off until 1:43 am. This is why Portland is resting key players tonight in Sacramento,
Haynes wrote in his his tweet.
The team's flight was eventually able to take off on Thursday afternoon, but it was far from an ideal situation for the squad:
“Portland Trail Blazers are finally on the runway to take off for tonight’s game against the Sacramento Kings after nearly 24-hours of weather uncertainty, but star guard Damian Lillard is unlikely to play, league sources tell @NBAonTNT, @BleacherReport,” Haynes reported.
After that entire brouhaha, it will be very interesting to see how the shorthanded Blazers fare against the Kings on Thursday. The players have to be exhausted.
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