Trail Blazers Get Teeth Kicked In by Celtics, Realize How Far They Have to Go
Scoot Henderson struggled in his return to the starting lineup, and the rest of the Blazers didn't fare much better against the best team in the NBA.
📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Every so often in a rebuilding season, you’re reminded just how far away you are from the level every team enters that phase hoping one day to get to.
Monday was the Celtics’ 50th win of the season and the Trail Blazers’ 46th loss. One of these teams is an inner-circle title contender and played like it, even without starters Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. The other, even at mostly full strength, is a near lock to have one of the five worst records in the league and couldn’t hang.
That’s the results part, which doesn’t mean much in a season like this. The most important part of the process left to watch in the final five weeks of the season is Scoot Henderson’s re-entry into the starting lineup on a full-time basis, which is back on track after an adductor injury he suffered during the All-Star break.
In the final game before the break, Chauncey Billups declared that Henderson would be starting for the rest of the season, having earned that increase responsibility with a strong stretch of games coming off the bench. The injury interrupted that experiment, and Henderson came off the bench in—and played well—in Saturday’s win over the Raptors. With his minutes restriction now lifted, Henderson returned to the starting lineup.
Just like his NBA debut came against the full-strength Clippers in October, he got another reality check on as a starting point guard on Monday against the best team in the league.
Henderson had a solid first shift, scoring seven points and getting to the free-throw line. After that, it was tough sledding against Boston’s suffocating defense. His box score doesn’t look awful—13 points, six rebounds and eight assists—but he had five turnovers and missed four of his five three-point attempts. A few times, he miscalculated the amount of room he’d have to finish around the rim and found himself stonewalled.
“I had a couple of tough turnovers,” Henderson said afterwards. “I’ve got to take my time rather than telegraphing the pass, or go make a play myself. That’s what I’m good at, rather than just trying to get off the ball quick.”
It wasn’t just Henderson that struggled. Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant combined to shoot 11-for-32 from the field, and Boston’s bench unit carved up the Blazers’ reserves. Only Deandre Ayton looked comfortable, and had his second straight excellent performance since coming back from a hand injury suffered last month.
More than one player remarked after the game that the Celtics’ continuity and the time Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum had spent together was obvious. The difference between these two teams couldn’t have been more obvious.
“Most of the great teams, the championship teams, they’ve been together for a long time,” Simons said. “Whether it’s the Nuggets, that core group has been together for a long time and just added a couple of pieces around them. But every good team has been together for a long time, whether it’s losing or losing playoff series. That’s kind of what we’re going through right now. We’re figuring each other out.”