It took six quarters, but Portland Trail Blazers rookie Yang Hansen found his preseason footing Friday night at the Moda Center. Well, he didn\u2019t just get settled; he burst onto the scene with a special sequence in the third quarter that electrified the home crowd and helped Portland overcome the Sacramento Kings, 124-123.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat boy different,\u201d Portland guard Caleb Love said. \u201c \u2026 Just to see how talented he is, the moves that he was doing out there. He looked more comfortable than he did the first game.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a rough preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday and a challenging first half against the Kings on Friday, everything flipped in an instant. The 20-year-old center broke through with 14 third-quarter points in just five minutes. Yang showed off the whole bag during the sequence, displaying the varied skillset that makes him such a promising prospect at 7-foot-1. With each highlight, you could see his confidence grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, he made some spectacular plays that I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be seeing again tonight on TV,\u201d Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups said.<\/p>\n
The sequence began with back-to-back 3s at around the 5:00 mark. One from the corner, the next from the top of the key. He celebrated the second make by holding up three fingers and shaking his hand as he ran back on defense, a motion that also had a practical motive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might\u2019ve just used that to relax my hand, though,\u201d Yang said about the celebration, speaking through an interpreter. \u201cIt felt a little bit numb.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, Yang began making the types of plays that made his Summer League experience so viral in July. He pushed the ball on the fast break, gave it up and got it right back for a layup around former Blazer Drew Eubanks. He hit teammate Shaedon Sharpe on a crisp backdoor bounce pass that ended in a slam. He connected on a free-throw line jumper with soft touch. He rejected Kings guard Malik Monk\u2019s layup at the rim.<\/p>\n
The best highlight came when he pump-faked from the top of the key, attacked a closeout, dribbled quick behind the back and then spun into another layup. That\u2019s when Yang knew he had unlocked something.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my move,\u201c Yang said. \u201cSo I got my move. I think that\u2019s the moment I let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hot stretch helped Yang finish with 16 points, four rebounds, three blocks and an assist on 5-8 shooting from the floor (4-4 on free throws) in 17 minutes. It was a big step up from his performance on Wednesday when he fouled out with four points and four turnovers after 21 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt a little bit guilty because I didn\u2019t do well for the team,\u201d Yang said about the debut, adding that he tried to course-correct by asking his coaches lots of questions on Thursday night and at Friday morning shoot around.<\/p>\n
Knowing Yang shows that dedication and care made Billups even happier about his success against Sacramento. Billups also said Yang\u2019s performances in practice have produced similar highlights.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had some moments in camp where he\u2019s shown some flashes, but not the whole practice,\u201d Billups said. \u201cBut he\u2019s had some moments where you\u2019re just like, \u2018Wow. He\u2019s not supposed to be doing that at that size.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly, Yang didn\u2019t put together a complete game on Friday. But during that hot third-quarter run, he showed glimpses of what makes him special and what could be coming down the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a star in the making,\u201d Love said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to keep getting better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billups said he held forward Toumani Camara out of the second half because he was dealing with some knee soreness.After Portland\u2019s deep bench coughed up a big fourth-quarter lead in Wednesday\u2019s loss, the reserves once again had to protect a double-digit lead on Friday. This time, they held off the Kings and pushed Portland to 1-1 on the preseason.Love had some troubles with clutch free throws down the stretch. He missed three in a row in the final 24 seconds, but made the fourth and most important attempt. That shot put Portland ahead by one with 0.6 seconds remaining.\u201cThey were just telling me I was good,\u201d Love said about what his teammates were telling him after the game. \u201cThey know I can make free throws, and that wasn\u2019t me. That was [artificial intelligence].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took six quarters, but Portland Trail Blazers rookie Yang Hansen found his preseason footing Friday night at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,89844,20873,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-205516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-blazers-gameday-coverage","11":"tag-from-press-row","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}