Even In Their Losses, This Portland Trail Blazers Team Is Learning How To Win

Friday, May 06, 2016

Patrick McEachern, Oregon Sports News

Let me start out by saying that I’ve been wrong about this Portland Trail Blazers team all season.

I said that they would be lucky to win 35 games. I said that they should kinda, sorta, maybe think about winning less games than they could to guarantee they not just keep their draft pick, but, get it as high as possible. I said, just last week, after going down 0-2 to the Clippers, that they shouldn’t worry about winning the series and should instead try to get their future pieces more experience.

Yet, here we sit in early May, with the Blazers one of 8 teams still standing and every so-called-expert scratching their head at just how this all happened. So, I’m done trying to say what this team can and can’t do. They’ve proven much smarter people than myself wrong at every turn, so, I’m off the “the Blazers can’t do it” bandwagon. Nothing would surprise me now.

At the same time, there’s upsetting a favorite in the playoffs, and there’s taking down arguably the greatest team in the history of the league. Steph Curry or no, this Warriors team is one for the ages, and a team like the Blazers knocking them off would be akin to Lehigh beating Duke… in a 7-game series. That’s one seriously tall order.

Yet, as we saw Tuesday night, this Blazers team isn’t going to let something like long odds keep them from believing that they’re capable of winning every game they play. They have shown a never-say-die spirit this season that would make anyone proud to be a part of, whether as a coach, a teammate or a fan.

Ever since the two series-opening beat-downs at the hands of the Clippers, the Blazers have been able to dig down deep and bring the gritty, scrappy, hard-nosed kind of play that it takes to succeed in the playoffs. It may not have always resulted in the most efficient, or aesthetically pleasing, play. And, after game 4, it may have come against a talent-depleted Clippers roster that had no business even sticking around in those games. But, the Blazers were able to scrap and claw and fight their way to four straight down-to-the-wire wins and take the series.

They showed that relentlessness again in the blowout loss to the Warriors in Game 1, despite getting kicked in the teeth right out of the gates. They never settled for what was, even at halftime, almost assuredly a lopsided defeat. Instead, they kept pushing, kept playing hard, and were able to keep things somewhat respectable by the end, “only” losing by 12. That stood in stark contrast to the previous night’s game, in which San Antonio jumped all over an Oklahoma City team that seemed perfectly satisfied mailing in the final 24 minutes.

In Game 2, the shots finally started falling for Rip City’s finest, as the Blazers played their best basketball in weeks as they took it to the defending champs for three quarters. Of course, we all know how that fourth quarter turned out. It was a sobering reminder just how far away this Blazers team is from truly competing for a ring.

But, as we all knew coming into this playoff run, that wasn’t the point. As good as they look at times, they simply don’t have the talent to compete night in and night out with the league’s best. Outside of getting absurdly hot from 3-point range, the only way this team was going to compete in the playoffs was to simply out-will their opponents. Fight through every screen, dive for every loose ball and give 100% on every play. It sounds cheesy and cliché, but, there’s a reason why. Because it works.

It takes more than just talent to win at the highest levels of sport. It takes a level of commitment and determination that is truly exceptional. The Blazers have shown flashes of that this season, and that’s how it has to start. But, at this point, that’s all it is: a start. In order to truly become a championship caliber team, they are going to need to add considerably more talent to the roster and play like they did for three quarters Tuesday night for an entire season and playoffs. That’s a tall order to be sure.

And, while they can’t do a whole lot about the talent deficiency at this point in the season, they can continue to build on their newfound playoff intensity. They can learn just exactly how it feels to expend maximum energy for not just a full game, but, a full series. Get used to just how tired they feel and just how deep they have to dig in order to make the plays it takes to win games when it counts.

Talent can always be acquired, but, talent without heart won’t cut it. And, this Blazer team is starting to show the early signs of that championship heart. And, every game they play, scrapping and clawing against a superior opponent, that heart muscle strengthens just a little bit.

I won’t try to guess how it will all play out or whether this Blazers team can pull off the upsets to end all upsets. They’ve proven time and again that prognostication is futile when it comes to this bunch. But, if they can continue to show the willingness to put in the kind of maximum effort that they have this playoff run, it’s going to go a long ways towards making this the team that Blazer fans everywhere hope they can become: an honest to goodness contender.