The Portland Trail Blazers were outclassed in the early going against the lowly Houston Rockets on Friday. Three days earlier, they trailed the LA Clippers by double-digits less than three minutes after tipoff. And on Sunday versus the depleted Denver Nuggets, Portland fell behind 24-8 in the first quarter, never coming closer than nine points before suffering another blowout loss.
Chauncey Billups has been notably composed in the immediate aftermath of his team's most dispiriting performances this season, always alluding to the necessary steps of lasting, long-term improvement. But following a 29-point drubbing to a Denver team down not just Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray but also Will Barton, a late scratch with back tightness, the rookie head coach couldn't hide his exasperation—and didn't much try.
“I’m just confused at I don’t think we came to compete in this game,” Billups said. “I mean, this is a team that beat us in the playoffs last year, and we don’t come and don’t even compete in the first quarter. I was a little disappointed in that, in the effort.”
The Blazers played without Damian Lillard on Sunday, sitting for the first time this season due to lower abdominal tendinopathy, the same injury that flared up over the summer at the Tokyo Olympics. Lillard had finally admitted after a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on November 4th that nagging pain in his core was affecting his play. He also pulled up limp during last week's loss to the Clippers, grabbing his midsection and grimacing in pain on an otherwise routine layup.
Maybe Lillard's career-worst slump, from which he'd been gradually emerging prior to missing Sunday's game, is finished for good now that he's had at least one full day of rest and rehabilitation. Even a reversion to sustained MVP-level form from Lillard, though, may not preclude lineup changes that appear all but inevitable now unless Portland fixes its recent early-game woes, and fast.
“It's coming. That point is coming soon if we continue to play like that,” Billups said of potential lineup tweaks when asked by Jason Quick of The Athletic. “If you think about it, if you keep playing that way, at some point I have to look at it say, ‘Dang, something is not quite working,' and then maybe think about shifting some things around. It's getting there.”
The Blazers' starters boast a +5.9 net rating, per Cleaning the Glass, a solid but unspectacular mark accomplished by above-average offense and below-average defense. That unit has played a whopping 378 possessions for Portland; no other lineup has notched even a quarter of that total. Billups has consistently lauded the energy and intensity his bench brings to the table, too, singling out Nassir Little, Dennis Smith Jr. and Cody Zeller after the Denver game.
Jusuf Nurkic was notably disengaged against his former team, getting roasted by Jokic one-on-one and clearly not on the same page as his teammates defensively. The Nuggets' first score came as Robert Covington, struggling all season even as a help defender, lost Aaron Gordon off the ball, leading to a put-back layup.
Billups, to be clear, didn't specify any of the changes be's clearly been considering internally. But given the lagging impact of Nurkic and Covington, the jolt of energy regularly provided by their backups and the organizational equity of the Blazers' three starting guards, it's not hard to deduce who's most likely due a demotion to the bench.
“I'm still learning our team,” Billups said. “I learn more every day when things like this happen…Days like this you learn a lot.”
Little, all athleticism, competitive vigor and burgeoning confidence, is currently playing the best basketball of his career. Zeller's been a step faster than Nurkic on both ends of late, and Billups has recently given more burn to lineups featuring Larry Nance Jr. at center. If change comes for the Blazers, the safe bet is Little being its most immediate beneficiary.
Benching Nurkic, who's unflinching pride can be as big a weakness as a strength, would reverberate through the locker room differently than demoting Covington. It's Little who's most separated himself as a game-changer off the bench, too.
Either way, it seems Monday's home game against the Toronto Raptors—on the second night of a back-to-back—will loom large in Billups' decision-making.
“Hopefully,” he said, “we play a lot harder tomorrow.”
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