The Sunday Wrap, Jan. 18: Surviving Without Deni
Wrapping up the week of Trail Blazers basketball.
The Rose Garden Report is a fully independent publication providing coverage of the Portland Trail Blazers and Portland Fire that you can’t get anywhere else. Purchasing a premium subscription gives you full access to all articles and ability to participate in mailbags, as well as helping to cover travel costs and other expenses to bring you the best coverage possible.
The latest edition of my new weekly wrap-up column is here, following a 2-2 week for the Trail Blazers with some reinforcements coming.
Last week
❌ Sunday: vs. New York Knicks (L, 123-114)
❌ Tuesday: at Golden State Warriors (L, 119-97)
✅ Thursday: vs. Atlanta Hawks (W, 117-101)
✅ Saturday: vs. Los Angeles Lakers (W, 132-116)
My week of work
Sean Highkin
Sean Highkin
The big story: Weathering the week without Deni Avdija
A week ago, the Blazers had what looked to be the biggest injury blow in a season full of them, when Deni Avdija grabbed his back near the end of last Sunday's loss to the Knicks and asked out of the game.
This team has dealt with plenty of injuries to key players this season, but if Avdija missed extended time on top of everything else, that might have been too much to keep them in the play-in. In their disastrous first game without him in San Francisco on Tuesday, it was clear just how much they missed him.
But they got three pieces of good news this week that mitigated their worst fears.
First: it doesn't seem like Avdija's back injury is nearly as serious as it appeared to be initially. He missed the Blazers' other three games this week, but after not even making the trip to the Bay Area for the Warriors game, he was listed as "Doubtful" on the injury report the day before each of their last two games, a sign that the injury is more day-to-day than anything long-term. We'll find out in a couple of hours whether he'll play tonight in Sacramento. I don't think it's a zero percent chance.
Second: they got Jerami Grant and Jrue Holiday back. Holiday had missed almost two months with a calf strain; Grant sat 14 games with Achilles tendinitis. Holiday came off the bench for his first two games back, and is now back in the starting lineup. Grant has come off the bench both games he's played.
After shaking off some initial rust, both have pretty much looked like themselves. Grant scored 22 points off the bench in Saturday's win over the Lakers, and Holiday just makes them function better at both ends when he's on the floor.
Third: after the faceplant in Golden State, they've figured out how to win without Avdija. They handled the Hawks on Thursday, a team about at the same place in the Eastern Conference as they are. The Lakers team they took care of on Saturday was without Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and their entire center rotation, but they've lost plenty of games earlier this season to teams they "should" beat—including a similarly shorthanded Lakers team in November.
"This was a dangerous game," Tiago Splitter said afterwards. "A lot of their guys out, they had LeBron James and their second unit. Same way we lost that game at home [in November], so it was kind of a trap game where we had to bring a sense of urgency and be serious about it. We're getting better at that."
The Blazers got Grant and Holiday back this week, Avdija shouldn't be out much longer, and Scoot Henderson continues to progress in his torn hamstring rehab. In the meantime, players like Caleb Love, Sidy Cissoko and Rayan Rupert have been forced into larger roles and improved immensely. It's put the Blazers in a position where, if they beat Sacramento later today, they will be back at .500 for the first time since Nov. 14, which was unthinkable a month ago.
"Even though nobody wants to have a team with a lot of hurt players, I think it helped us a lot, being able to grow and mature," Toumani Camara said Saturday. "Whether that's different roles or being able to master your role. We're a very young team, so being able to have those moments I think has helped everybody."
Other notes
- The All-Star starters are set to be announced tomorrow. They aren't determined entirely by fan voting (there are also player and media components), but I don't expect Avdija to be named a starter. I do think he will be named a Western Conference reserve in the coming weeks when the rest of the selections are announced. In fact, I'll be very surprised if it doesn't happen.
- Also on the topic of All-Star representatives, I definitely expect Donovan Clingan to be invited to the Rising Stars game, which he wasn't as a rookie for some reason. Caleb Love might have a shot, too.
- The interesting All-Star Weekend case will be Yang Hansen. I'm sure the NBA would really, really like to have him involved in the weekend's events in some capacity because of what it would mean for viewership in China, but he hasn't played anywhere near enough (or been productive enough when he has played) to justify a Rising Stars invite, especially with how good this rookie class is and how many deserving players there are. Maybe they backdoor him in as part of the G League component of the event. Last year, they put No. 3 overall pick Reed Sheppard (who was about as impactful on his team as a rookie as Yang is) on "Team G League" despite him playing all of three games for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, as a way to sneak a popular former Kentucky star and high draft pick into Rising Stars when he hadn't "earned" it. If that's the precedent, including Yang is absolutely fair game.
- Speaking of Yang and the G League: he played two games for the Remix this week, both against the Oklahoma City Blue. His numbers were solid in both games (22 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks on Wednesday; 14 points, 17 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks on Friday), but I thought the second game was by far the better performance. In the G League, he gets to play a lot more like he did at Summer League, with the offense being run through him at the top of the key, and he looks comfortable directing traffic at both ends of the floor. That's the way the Blazers envision using him ultimately, but their roster isn't set up for him to play that kind of role right now, which is as much of a factor in his NBA struggles as the physicality and language barrier. Yang did media after the second game, mostly with Chinese reporters, but he answered a few of my questions in English and is getting more comfortable there. Remix coach Jonah Herscu also raved about his improvement. I remain very bullish on his long-term future.
- Whenever the Blazers convert Love and Sidy Cissoko to real NBA contracts (as I wrote about earlier this week), they should definitely sign Blake Hinson from the Remix to backfill one of the two-way spots. He's been their best player in every game I've gone to, and the Blazers could use the shooting.
- Last night's victory over the Lakers was the Blazers' 21st win of the season. They're two weeks ahead of last year's pace—they won their 21st game of the 2024-25 season on Feb. 2. Two years ago, in their first year without Damian Lillard, they finished the season with 21 wins.
- My favorite stat that shows how much more competitive the Blazers are, even in losses, than they were last season: Of the 22 games they've lost this year, only nine of them have been by double digits and six have been by 20 or more (with two of those 20-point losses being to Oklahoma City, who blow everyone out). Last year, through their first 22 losses of the season, which happened on Jan. 2, they had 14 double-digit losses and 10 losses by 20 or more. So they had more 20-point losses by this time last year than they have 10-point losses now. Their two worst losses of the season, by 29 and 27, were both on the road in Oklahoma City. Last season before the new year, they lost by 40 or more points at home twice to much worse teams than the Thunder—Memphis and Utah.
- The Blazers shot 22 free throws in the first quarter of the win over the Lakers, which is the most any team has shot in a quarter this season.
- We haven't heard much from Damian Lillard this year as he's expected to miss the entire season recovering from a torn Achilles, but he gave a very nice speech to the crowd before Saturday's game about Martin Luther King.
This week
✈️ Sunday: at Sacramento Kings (6 p.m., Golden 1 Center)
🏠 Thursday: vs. Miami Heat (7 p.m., Moda Center)
🏠 Friday: vs. Toronto Raptors (7 p.m., Moda Center)
Jerseys of the week
Donations help support independent coverage of the Portland Trail Blazers and Portland Fire.
Read next
