Trail Blazers 111-123 Clippers (Oct 25, 2023) Box Score - ESPN
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Box score for the Portland Trail Blazers vs. LA Clippers NBA game from October 25, 2023 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.
  • Piano9717BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    (Real) NBA basketball is back, baby! Waited for this moment for so long. Here are some of my takeaways from this game:

    Positives

    • Ant looked like he gave more of an effort on defense. He even took a charge and walled up PG and Kawhi several times!

    • Ant’s passing and overall control of the offense: he looked decisive and quick and not really out of place handling the ball. He wasn’t rushed, and got to his spots at will. Good to see.

    • Williams’ defense. He’s just super intelligent overall on that side of the floor and uses his length and anticipation to get a ton of deflections. I can definitely see how he was a DPOY candidate a few years ago.

    • Camara has fantastic defensive instincts for a rookie. He’s active with his hands, his rotations are crisp and on time, and he uses verticality very well. But I think I was most impressed by his footwork – being able to stay in front of Norm and Bones Hyland as a big forward is great to see.

    • not sure if this is a positive, but a lot of guys in the game thread had their expectations adjusted. So, maybe a good thing. This season is going to be pretty painful at times.

    Negatives

    • Scoot. Yikes. Not much more to be said here either. Definitely a “welcome to the league” moment, but I’m not down about him long term. These kinds of nights are going to happen for pretty much every rookie. Glad he had a good stretch in garbage time though so he can go into next game on a positive note – that’s big for a 19 year old making his debut.
    • Ayton had a nightmareish debut. The foul trouble hurt him and he never really got into a rhythm. He was an 18/10 guy on the Suns but a lot of that was due to elite guard play (91% of his FG last season were either assisted, or putbacks). With less elite guard play here, I’m not exactly sure what his role is supposed to be offensively. He just…seemed invisible for long stretches of the game and that’s not what you want from your max contract center. Don’t get me wrong, he was solid defensively and not hurting the team, but I sort of wanted to see a bit more from him – something that a replacement level center can’t replicate.
    • Brogdon at PG. He’s had a very long track record of not being a great primary ballhandler, and being much better when he’s able to be a secondary or tertiary option. He’s not the type of guard that is going to efficiently get a team into an offense and get guys into the right spots. Pretty much every time he brought up the ball today, the ball stagnated and it led to a late-shot-clock forced shot. He’s a great player and very effective when he plays off the catch within the flow of the offense, but not when he’s asked to be the primary ballhandler.
    • The team defense looked discombobulated all night. I get that some of it is due to having a team full of new guys who haven’t played together before, but man. If Chauncey doesn’t get these guys to communicate and actually play defense, we aren’t going to get a chance to play in fast and in transition offensively because we’ll be taking the ball out from under the basket every time. Yikes.
    • Fearless_Knowledge77BEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Truth is Ayton is the picture definition of lazy once he got paid. Don’t give me “it’s only one game” - if you’ve truly watched him play, you can see it on his face and in his lackadaisical movement on the floor for the last year. It’s not a “Suns were holding him back” thing it’s a lack of maturity and lack of will thing. Dude got his bag. He has no aggressiveness in his game now.

    • 1nsiderBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      but a lot of guys in the game thread had their expectations adjusted.

      Casuals - This has been the talk on the sub for the last month and both NBA media (ESPN last in power ranking) and Blazers media have been warning about this for a while.

      I’m afraid that casuals bitter about Dame will take it out on Scoot (already heckled at the fan fest) and especially Ayton. Both need to feel welcome and supported to flourish.

    • EdoubleYTBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Ayton will continue to become invisible for long stretches, it’s kind of strange because he has publicly pleaded for more touches and a bigger role in the offense in the past but he doesn’t show any desire to actually want the ball.

      It’s sort of like a midfielder in soccer who hides behind defenders instead of checking in constantly into open space and asking for the ball.

  • BatSniperBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Hard first game to play for a bunch of young players to play. Clips got a lot of old heads. Think it’ll take a few games vs other young teams to find our stride.

  • ErikinAmericaBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think 20 wins is a fair assessment after that first game. We look Raw AF out there.