It was a little after noon on Thursday when the Portland Trail Blazers slowly started to move on from chatter about arrests and indictments and conspiracies to basketball and what comes next.
That was when general manager Joe Cronin gathered the entire practice facility staff in Tualatin — coaches, players, trainers, basketball operations personnel, everyone — for a chat.
The mass of people stood near the free throw line on one of the courts, roughly 90 minutes before Chauncey Billups was scheduled to be arraigned in a federal courtroom in downtown Portland, huddling together for the first time since learning their coach had been a target of a multi-year law enforcement investigation.
The mood was “heavy, quiet,” according to one team source. Matisse Thybulle called it “incredibly tense, awkward.”
But it was also the first step forward.
Cronin told the group that Billups was on everyone’s mind and inside everyone’s heart, but he and the staff remained excited about the team and its future, according to a team source. Cronin also told the group that Tiago Splitter would be taking over as interim coach, a move that assistant Nate Bjorkgren endorsed.
“We’ve got big challenges,” Cronin said, according to a team source. “But I believe in this group. I believe in our resolve and our spirit. Chauncey is on our minds and we’re thinking about him. But we have a game tomorrow. We have to try to move forward.”
Thirty hours later, the Blazers didn’t merely move forward, they sprinted away from a day-and-a-half of surreal chaos, steamrolling the vaunted Golden State Warriors 139-119 before 18,090 at the Moda Center.
In a show of force that featured all of the hallmarks of their new identity — speed, pressure, depth, unyielding effort — the Blazers forced 25 turnovers, scored 30 fast-break points, shot 54% and scored 70 second-half points, all while making the aging Warriors (2-1) look, well, old. And make no mistake, that was by design.
Golden State was playing the second night of a back-to-back that opened with a tough overtime win over the Denver Nuggets.
So when the Blazers (1-1) gathered in the locker room at halftime, Splitter told the team that plays faster than any other in the NBA to play even faster, to go even harder, to give even more. Then he dangled a bribe in front of his players.
“What did he tell us at halftime?” Jrue Holiday asked aloud in the postgame locker room in the direction of Thybulle.
“He said we won’t have practice or shootaround,” Thybulle replied, letting out a big cackle.
“Yeah,” Holiday said, smiling. “He pretty much just said leave it all out there in the second half. And I feel like we did that.”
Indeed. Deni Avdija (26 points, six assists and five rebounds) was a dominant blur of speed and energy. Jerami Grant (22 points, 6 of 10 shooting) had another impactful performance off the bench. Holiday (12 points, 11 assists, five rebounds) recorded his first double-double with the Blazers.
Toumani Camara (19 points, seven rebounds, three steals) drew charges and dove for loose balls. Donovan Clingan (14 points, eight rebounds) protected the paint and snatched offensive rebounds. Thybulle (10 points, three steals) and Blake Wesley brought relentless energy and pressure. Everyone contributed in some meaningful way.
All the while, it looked as if the Blazers released a gigantic sigh of relief. But, really, the 48 minutes of dominance was more cathartic than anything after a 48 hours no one will forget.
“We all go through (stuff) personally that no one ever hears about,” Thybulle said. “And basketball’s always been, for a lot of players, that place to just go and forget about it and play and get lost in it. It’s just the thing that we love. It’s the escape for us. So more than anything, (this was) just the same thing, but just a different cause.”
What started with a step forward at the practice facility ended with water dripping from a gigantic pinwheel light that hangs above the locker room at the Moda Center.
It was the remnants of an ice-cold water bath Blazers players showered Splitter with after his first career NBA coaching victory. It took all of one game for the man who arrived in Portland in June, after Billups enticed him to leave the Paris Basketball Club to overhaul the Blazers’ offense, to earn his players’ admiration.
“I’m still trying to understand what’s going on,” Splitter said after the game. “But I’m super proud of them going through all this stuff and (to) go out there and perform. At the end of the day, they are the guys that are running and shooting the ball, not us. So I’m impressed.”
At that impromptu gathering near the free throw line at the practice facility, Splitter had a simple message for his team, according to Avdija: “Stay together.”
Two nights later, after earning his first career win, Splitter couldn’t help but relish what he had seen.
Not on the court.
But in that wet locker room.
“I was just happy to see a smile on my players’ faces,” he said.
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