The Trail Blazers are Built to Win the Emirates NBA Cup™️
Portland's most important win of the season came on the first night of the NBA's second annual in-season tournament. Can they make a run to Las Vegas?
📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Nothing like a game with some stakes to save the Trail Blazers’ season.
There were plenty of stakes built in already to Tuesday night’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers were coming off a lifeless 45-point loss to Memphis over the weekend that had many (including me) wondering if Chauncey Billups would survive the week. That’s reason enough for the team to respond, if they were going to.
But Tuesday came with even more stakes: it was the first of four group-stage games in the NBA’s second-annual in-season tournament, which I think you’re now legally obligated to call by its official name, the Emirates NBA Cup™️. What a perfect opportunity for the Blazers not just to rebound from one of their worst losses of a two-year period full of them, but to actually play for something more tangible than development and lottery balls.
If this is what they’re going to look like on a big stage with real stakes—a trip to Las Vegas for the championship game and a $500,000 cash prize per player—maybe the rebuild is in a better place than previously thought.