Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija has played like a star all season. Now, he\u2019s facing the next level in a star basketball player\u2019s evolution: the opposing defense\u2019s utmost attention.<\/p>\n
Those two elements were clear in Portland\u2019s competitive 123-115 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Moda Center on Sunday afternoon. Avdija produced another monster stat line with 31 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists and just one turnover while shooting 6-14 from the field and 19-23 from the free throw line. In response, the Thunder threw the kitchen sink at him. OKC defenders denied, bumped and double-teamed Avdija to try to dampen his supernova impact, especially when the game was on the line in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy,\u201d Avdija said about adjusting to that much defensive pressure. \u201cWhen I came to the league at first, people would leave me wide open in the corner. \u2026 It definitely gives you a little boost of confidence that you hurt teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The double teams from the defending NBA champions worked like a badge of honor for Avdija, showing just how good he\u2019s been this season and how much respect he\u2019s beginning to command from opposing defenses. As Avdija hit on, the night also reflected the staggering progress the 24-year-old forward has made during his NBA career to lead to this explosion in Year Six. The 6-foot-8 Avdija has evolved from a 3-and-D wing who the Washington Wizards primarily parked on the perimeter to a jack-of-all-trades, downhill weapon who Portland can\u2019t afford to have playing off-ball for long. With the Blazers dealing with so many injuries to their guard rotation \u2014 starting center Donovan Clingan also joined the inactive list versus OKC with an illness \u2014 interim head coach Tiago Splitter has consolidated most of the offensive responsibility onto Avdija. The uptick in workload has only made his talent more undeniable.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis motor is very good,\u201d Splitter said about what has stood out most about Avdija\u2019s play lately. \u201cThe ability to get in transition and find gaps, find funnels and attack the rim. Tonight he didn\u2019t make a shot outside the paint, but his ability to find those angles and attack smaller defenders, bigger defenders \u2014 he\u2019s a tough matchup. He\u2019s doing that. We\u2019re trying to take the most juice we can out of it and create offense that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Avdija has been so important to Portland\u2019s offense lately, it\u2019s no surprise the Blazers slipped up against OKC during one of the brief spells when he sat on the bench. The Blazers led 87-85 at the start of the fourth quarter and threatened to pull off a second win against the Thunder this season. Then with Avdija out, OKC flipped the momentum with a rapid 8-0 run, thanks largely to three missed Portland 3-pointers that led to easy OKC leak-outs in transition. Avdija had only subbed out at the third-quarter buzzer, but the run forced Splitter to end his rest early and ride him the rest of the way with 10:24 remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to save him [more for the end], but this is a very good team, and they had those three layups in transition,\u201d Splitter said. \u201cI felt like I had to bring him earlier and give us a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the Thunder turned up the pressure. Hustle-and-energy forward Kenrich Williams or the stout Luguentz Dort provided most of the hounding as the Thunder face-guarded Avdija 94 feet for the rest of the game to deny him touches. Avdija fought through the pressure to still produce 11 points and three assists while shooting 2-3 from the floor. He also used that physicality against OKC to get to the line for nine free throws in the fourth quarter alone. But the Thunder\u2019s approach succeeded in not allowing Avdija run rampant, and it forced the Blazers to run multiple ill-fated 4-on-4 possessions by taking their star out of the play entirely.<\/p>\n
Compared to Portland\u2019s 115-102 loss to the Spurs on Wednesday where the second-leading scorer after Avdija produced just 13 points and the 3-point shooting was dreadful, the Blazers\u2019 supporting cast was better on Sunday. Toumani Camara bounced back for 19 points and hit five 3s. Jerami Grant produced 18. Five Blazers reached double figures and the 3-point percentage crept up to 32.7%. That production wasn\u2019t enough to topple a juggernaut like the Thunder, who salted the game away late with a clinic in elite shotmaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried everything we had,\u201d Splitter said. \u201cDifferent matchups, going small, going big, zone, traps. So it was a lot of things that I threw at them, and they performed well. But at the end of the day, you\u2019ve still gotta make shots, and they were able to make more than us.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how was Avdija after running around, and through, OKC\u2019s defense all night? How did he act after his latest herculean effort came in another loss and Portland dropped to 8-12 on the season?<\/p>\n
Positive and undeterred, with no hints of frustration.<\/p>\n
After the San Antonio loss, Avdija took solace in knowing tough losses add experience to a young team. On Sunday, he talked about how proud he is of his teammates for stepping up in the absence of key players and hanging in games. He gushed about how much fun he\u2019s having growing with this particular group.<\/p>\n
The demeanor wasn\u2019t complacency. It was a calmness. Avdija and his teammates believe they\u2019re going about the process correctly, and it\u2019ll eventually lead to better days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no complaints,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija has played like a star all season. Now, he\u2019s facing the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,20873,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-321381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-from-press-row","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321381","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=321381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}