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📍INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The last time Tom Dundon was visible at a Trail Blazers game was their opening-night loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Back then, he only had an agreement to buy the team from Paul Allen's estate. That performance was overshadowed by other things that happened about five hours after the final buzzer, but despite the loss, that game had on display everything this team was supposed to be good at. The unselfish offense, the smothering defense, Deni Avdija's tenacity, all of it.
That night, I wrote that even with the result, the owner-to-be "had to be pleased with what he saw."
That applies five months later, too, in the first game the Blazers played under new management an impressive 114-104 win over the Clippers at Intuit Dome.
For the last two days, acting head coach Tiago Splitter had been calling Tuesday night's game "the most important game of the season," and not just because they needed to put on a good first-date face for the new boss.
The Clippers were two games ahead of the Blazers in the loss column, and a loss would have all but shut the door on Portland's chances of moving up to eighth and getting two cracks at winning a game to get into the playoffs. Late last week, they played arguably their worst game of the year, a listless home loss to a Dallas Mavericks team that has nothing to play for. They haven't matched up well with the Clippers the previous two times they've played this season. And the tension around the organization had been palpable for the past few weeks as everyone grappled with what the ownership change could mean.
A lot working against them, and without their second- and third-leading scorers in Shaedon Sharpe and Jerami Grant on top of it.
"We've got to approach this game just like the Finals," Splitter said pregame. "I think there's a level of urgency where you focus a little bit more, really pay more attention to details. Coaches try to also explain everything twice. There's a little more effort there on all parts."
For the first time in a long time, the Blazers backed up Splitter's pleas for urgency and focus.
Flat-out, this was the best the Blazers looked against a team that wasn't losing on purpose in at least two months. Maybe longer, even going back to that late-October start. Nothing that has plagued the team for most of the season did them in this time. They went 17-of-18 from the foul line, turned the ball over just 14 times (well below their league-worst season average of 17.4 per game) and made five more three-pointers than the Clippers. Deni Avdija looked as comfortable as he has since his back issues started in early January, Jrue Holiday hit seven threes and Toumani Camara did a solid job defending Kawhi Leonard, who had a relatively quiet 23-point night.
And what a performance from the bench, particularly Robert Williams III, Matisse Thybulle and Kris Murray.
"Everybody contributed," Holiday said.
It was a day that could have been heavy for reasons that had nothing to do with the game.
Dundon and one of his co-investors, Sheel Tyle, accompanied the team to morning shootaround on the campus of Santa Monica College, to get the lay of the land for their $4.25 billion new toy. Dundon, clad in gym shorts and (notably) a Hartford Whalers hat, mostly sat on the side of the gym, having an in-depth chat with Grant. Multiple players and coaches used the word "intense" to describe their first real time spent with him.
It was quieter than most practices are at the end when reporters are let in. The tension was unavoidable given the speculation and uncertainty about the direction Dundon is going to take the organization.
Between that uncertain mood permeating shootaround and two months of sample size of how this team has looked every time they've played a team with something to play for, I told a colleague before the game I thought they were going to lose by 30.
I'll take the L on that one.
"I think we came to fight," Avdija said. "We were very focused. We were very detailed in what we wanted to do. Very hungry coming in from the jump. We just got the job done."
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