It was only one game, but the Portland Trail Blazers’ four-man bench crew made a strong impression on coach Chauncey Billups during Wednesday night’s 124-121 loss to Sacramento at the Moda Center.
Anfernee Simons, Nassir Little, Larry Nance Jr. and Cody Zeller combined to play 70 minutes and in that time produced 25 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists. Those aren’t spectacular numbers, but they came about with great efficiency. The foursome shot 11 of 17 from the field (64.7%) and committed just three turnovers. Plus, they played with the fire Billups expects.
“That’s what your reserves, your bench guys are supposed to do,” Billups said. “They’re supposed to come in there with a lot of energy.”
Neil Olshey, president of basketball operations, set out to improve the bench over the summer. The two big additions were Zeller and Nance. Simons and Little, two former first-round picks, were expected to evolve and improve, and have.
“I thought Ant came in and played well,” Damian Lillard said. “I thought Cody brought energy to the game. Nas came in playing with energy. I thought everybody off the bench came in and played a solid game.”
Still, the bench also contributed to the loss.
“I think, just collectively we had those breakdowns and not enough consistency through the first few quarters for us to say we played well,” Lillard said. “We couldn’t put long enough stretches together, but I thought the energy was there. Everybody cared.”
Simons finished with 11 points and four rebounds. Little scored seven. Zeller had five points and six rebounds, while Nance put up two points, three rebounds and two assists.
Simons’ production left Billups feeling annoyed after the game that he didn’t play his backup point guard for more than 17 minutes.
“I thought Ant played really well,” Billups said. “I’ll be looking at the tape and probably kicking myself for not playing him more in this game.”
Especially given that Lillard played 40 minutes. Billups wants to reduce Lillard’s minutes from the 35.8 per game he played last season. But that wasn’t in the cards on Wednesday.
“He had to play a lot tonight,” Billups said.
Mostly out of necessity. Lillard played 10 minutes in the first quarter and nine in the second. He played the entire third quarter while the team tried to come back but the Blazers ultimately trailed 100-85 heading to the fourth. Lillard sat to start the final quarter before Billups inserted him back into the game with 8:22 remaining and the team down 109-98.
“I waited pretty much as long as I could,” Billups said.
The Blazers got to within 122-121 with 11.1 seconds remaining but ultimately fell short.
Playing heavy minutes can lead to fatigue, which can impact a player’s quality of play.
“That’s on us and that’s on me to be better about kind of managing that,” Billups said.
CJ McCollum’s minutes (35) were also a concern given that he carried a lot of the offensive burden while scoring 34 points on 14-of-24 shooting and also spent time guarding the Kings’ ultra-quick point guard, De’Aaron Fox.
While watching the game video, Billups realized that he could have reduced minutes for both Lillard and McCollum by simply giving more playing time to Simons.
“Ant’s 5 of 6 (shooting) and he’s giving us the type of push that we needed up and down the floor, pace-wise,” Billups said. ”So, to have another ballhandler, playmaker in there probably would have helped us.”
As for Little, he earned his minutes with a strong camp and by demonstrating a willingness to play defense. He had a bad showing in the preseason opener against Golden State and then missed the rest of the preseason with a hamstring injury. Wednesday night, he showed what all the fuss was about regarding his development, especially on defense.
“I think we’ve got to get to a point where I envision Nas being a guy that we can put on ones through fours,” Billups said. “He has the athletic gifts to be able to do so. He doesn’t have the experience at the moment to be a lockdown guy. But it’s part of his development is that we have to put them in those positions, in those situations.”
Again, it’s only one game, but the play of the bench was viewed as a bright spot in a disappointing loss.
-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
Ad Choices