Trail Blazers Left Searching for Consistency after 'Disappointing,' 'Underachieving' Road Trip

DENVER — Their overall position right now could be worse, but the Trail Blazers are heading into Christmas with a lot of work to do and a lot of things to figure out.

A 2-4 showing on this six-game road trip that ended in a loss to the Nuggets following two winnable games dropped in Oklahoma City is not what anybody wanted.

"I'm very disappointed in this trip," head coach Chauncey Billups said after the game.

Damian Lillard agreed: "I think we underachieved."

Jerami Grant: "Not a great one for us."

The Blazers team limping into the holiday at 17-16 and ninth in a crowded Western Conference is a far cry from the tough, connected, aggressive team whose 10-4 start to the season surprised everyone, including most in the organization.

That team is still in there somewhere and shows itself in flashes, like the version that blew the doors off Denver in the second quarter on Friday to take a six-point lead into halftime. But just as common are the defensive lapses and self-inflicted turnovers that lead to things like the following third quarter, where Portland was outscored 36-17.

"We're two different teams," Lillard said. "We come out and be one team, we win. And then we come out and be another team, we lose. I think the biggest takeaway from that is it's not easy to sustain. That's a major area of growth for us."

This road trip laid bare that they still have a ways to go. Their two wins came against the two worst teams they've faced this season in San Antonio and Houston, and even the latter game saw Billups forced to put his starters back in to finish out what should have been a blowout.

Those were accompanied by a lifeless showing in Dallas, two inexplicable dropped ones in Oklahoma City and a stay in Denver in sub-zero temperatures.

Some of it on Friday was bad shooting luck—Portland went 9-for-35 from three-point range on mostly good looks. Anfernee Simons shot 6-for-22 and 1-for-10 from three. But they also failed to capitalize on opportunities to cut into a Denver lead that was never as big as it should have been. In the fourth quarter, Grant converted a four-point play on a flagrant foul call retaining possession, and Jusuf Nurkic immediately squandered that break with a moving screen call. Nurkic fouled out on two consecutive offensive fouls. Other chances to retake control were short-circuited by the kind of turnovers that have become all too familiar for this team.

"We're trying to build something," Grant said. "It's been 30 games, but we're still trying to put stuff together. It's just consistency. We've had a lot of mental lapses where we lose focus a little bit here and there. We still do have a young team. I know we have vets and stuff like that, but we've just got to put it together."

For most of Friday night, the Blazers played like a team on the last game of a six-game road trip. But they've been playing like a team on the last game of a six-game road trip for most of the trip, even dating back to Dallas at the beginning.

"You've got to be able to sustain your focus, and you've got to be engaged on a nightly basis," Lillard said. "Everybody has talent. Everybody has guys with ability. But the difference between the good teams, the average teams and the bad teams is, who can sustain that focus and who can be engaged for longer periods of time. Not just over the course of a game, but over stretches of games. Right now, we're that team sometimes and other times we're not."

Where do the Blazers fall on that continuum of good, average and bad teams? It depends on the night.

"I think we're a good team," Lillard said. "I think the best teams right now, you're starting to see them separate themselves from the bunch. There are a lot of teams right now that are dropping. We're able to sustain ourselves in the middle of the pack right now, but that's not what we came into the season wanting for ourselves. We came into this season wanting to be one of the best teams. We've got the talent, we've got the depth, we've got a lot of guys that bring something to the table that can help us win games.

"We're a good team, but we've just got to get over that hump and figure out what has to happen to where we come into these games and we're really locked-in and focused."

This is clearly a team that needs a boost of some kind. Maybe that boost will come with the return of Gary Payton II in the coming days. A report in Bleacher Report on Thursday indicated Payton hopes to return in the next week, but "hopes to return in the next week" has perpetually been the word on Payton for most of the season.

If it's not Payton's return, it has to be something. Maybe a trade, but that's unlikely until closer to the deadline. Maybe just getting to go home for most of the next month after already playing over half the road schedule for the season by the end of December.

The Blazers aren't panicking, but they're still looking for answers on why the good team that exists somewhere in Portland isn't present all the time.

"There's no excuse for it," Billups said. "I really can't put my finger on it, to be honest with you. We have these really good stretches in all these games, but it's hard to sustain. It's been an issue for us all year. Even though it's Christmas, I'm going to spend the next two days trying to figure out why."