Portland Trail Blazers aim to keep season alive with possible trip to NBA playoffs

The Portland Trail Blazers will face off against the Phoenix Suns tonight in the NBA play-in tournament, which kicks off today. The Blazers ended the NBA regular season on Sunday with a 42-40 record and are the number 8 seed in the Western Conference.

If they beat the Suns, the Blazers would make it to the NBA playoffs for the first time in five years. But even if the Blazers lose tonight, they could still punch their ticket to the playoffs with a victory over the winner of the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors play-in game.

Mike Richman is the host of the “Locked on Blazers” podcast. He joins us to preview tonight’s game and recap the major developments of the Blazers’ season.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Portland Trail Blazers will play their first postseason game in five years tonight. They’ll take on the Phoenix Suns in Phoenix in the NBA play-in tournament. The winner heads to the playoffs. The loser could still punch their ticket to the playoffs with a victory in the next play-in game. Mike Richman is the host of the daily “Locked On Blazers” podcast. He joins us to preview tonight’s game and to look back at an eventful season. Mike, welcome back to the show.

Mike Richman: Thanks for having me.

Miller: What does it mean to the team that they are finally playing in the postseason after a five-year drought?

Richman: It’s the culmination of a long road to be relevant. They’ve taken the better part of four plus seasons to get back to being a team that is consistently competitive. And while I don’t think this year was a triumph in being a really high-level basketball team, they are certainly much closer now than they have been at any point since 2021.

Miller: I want to hear more about tonight’s game, but just to get briefly into how they got here. Arguably the biggest positive story of the season was Deni Avdija. Can you give us a sense for how well he’s done this year?

Richman: Yeah, he’s put together probably one of the 10, maybe higher, best individual seasons in franchise history. He’s been really, really good. The first Trail Blazer to make an All-Star team since Damian Lillard, back in 2022. He’s taken on more responsibility, in terms of having the ball in his hand and all those things, without a real drop in his ability, his efficiency. He’s a great playmaker, he’s a really good scorer, he’s a relentless physical driver, and he’s put them into another tier, in terms of hope. Because all of a sudden you have this 25 year old All-Star, which, when you are a young team that’s rebuilding, it’s kind of what you’re searching for. Obviously you now need more than that. But he’s a huge building block and has solidified himself as such, this season.

Miller: Did you see this coming?

Richman: The short answer is no. It’s not very good for radio, but no. He was good at the end of last year, even very good at the end of last year. But March and April, in the NBA, is what is often referred to as silly season, because it is the time of year where teams just stop trying. It may be a larger problem for the sport, tackled by another podcast at some other point – another radio show at some other point. When a player is just so good in March and April, it’s just hard to know if that will extrapolate to, say, the 82-game sample of the regular season.

And not only did he play probably at a level higher than he did at the end of last season, he also got more responsibility because the Blazers had injuries, particularly to point guards. So Dani kind of shifted into this role where he’s got to dribble and pass and set up his teammates and run the offense. So a shift in responsibility, shift in the amount of ask, the amount of what was put on his plate, and he has been excellent.

Miller: Who or what do you see as the other bright spots from this season?

Richman: I would say Donovan Clingan, Blazers’ second year center, has emerged as a legitimate NBA starter. He was good as a rookie. He was very impressive. But he didn’t play a ton and it was unclear whether someone of his size, 7’2”, although I think they announced him in the stadium now as 7’3”. He grew an inch over the summer.

Miller: We all did.

Richman: Yeah, I don’t, at least not that direction. 7’3”, 300 pounds, like, can you play 28-30 minutes a night for the interminably long seven-month NBA season? And he’s proven that he can take on a bigger role. He’s been a very bright spot.

I think Toumani Camara’s emergence has been a bright spot, and they’ve got some nice contributions from veteran players like Jrue Holiday, who missed a bunch of time with injury. But when he has played, it’s been very helpful. And Robert Williams III, the backup center who has missed a bunch of time over the last four seasons with injuries, has been healthy this year and really, really helpful.

Miller: All right, so let’s turn to tonight. How did the Blazers do against the Suns in their regular season matchups?

Richman: They went one and two, and so they lost twice and their one win was a very odd game, in which the Suns had very few players available. They played twice back in February and the Blazers won the second of those two matchups. And they won another game in November. But in the NBA, things that happen in November, by the time you get to the spring, we’ve just moved into another world. So I don’t see those as predictive. But certainly the Suns have gotten the better of the Blazers in their meetings thus far this season.

Miller: How do you think they match up in April?

Richman: Pretty favorably, honestly. Dave, you’ll know from my past appearances on your show is that I’m generally a bit of a pessimist when it comes to the Portland Trail Blazers.

Miller: You’re the daily Eeyore podcaster for the Blazers.

Richman: That’s right. I come here, check in every day with me, and I’ll tell you how it’s not going great. But I feel more confident about this team than I have in a really long time and in this specific game, I think they match up well. I think they probably have the best player, which is maybe a reductive way to analyze it. But sometimes in basketball, in a single game, do you have the best dude, it’s a fairly good predictor. I like the Blazers’ chances. I think they’re a little bit bigger. I think they have about equal levels of depth of talent. Obviously, a one-off game can be a little bit flukey, but I like their chances in a way that I haven’t felt confident about them

probably since like 2019.

Miller: Every team, every season, has to navigate some number of injuries. It’s a long season, as you mentioned, and a really physical sport. But it did seem like the Blazers were more banged up than average over the course of the season. How are they doing right now just in terms of personnel?

Richman: Dave, tonight may be the first time all year that they have had every available player suit up and be ready to go. This might be quite literally their healthiest game of the season. It won’t be their last game of the season no matter what happens. But it is one of their last games of the season and they’re as healthy as they’ve ever been. Jerami Grant is listed as questionable. He’s missed the last seven games with a calf injury. He is the only one on the injury report, other than Damian Lillard, who is presumed out until next year, while he recovers from an Achilles injury. So at long last, they’ve got their crew going into their biggest game of the year.

Miller: Let me give you a chance to be less positive. Let’s say that the Blazers make it to the playoffs. Then what?

Richman: Now this is my sweet spot. They’re going to play a team that’s a lot better than them and their season will end quickly. If they win tonight, they’ll play the ascendant San Antonio Spurs, who might have the best player in the world in Victor Wembanyama. They are a 60 win team, and the Blazers will be on the road to begin that series. That is a very, very, very tough hill to climb. And if they lose tonight and they were to advance with a win Friday, they would play the defending NBA champion, Oklahoma City Thunder, who have maybe the best player in the world in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and have even more wins, the best record in the NBA and are just an absolute machine. So, it gets really tough from here. But I think this is more about taking steps, and to make the playoffs would be an important step. And when they get thrashed next week in the playoffs, that will be what we’ll call a learning experience.

Miller: Speaking of the future though, the new majority stake owner in the team, Tom Dundon, gave a flurry of interviews a few weeks ago, after the sale finally officially went through. What stood out to you in what you heard?

Richman: He is a man who is deeply aware of his standing in a public negotiation with a variety of political arms. And he is not even remotely sentimental in his approach to being the owner of a basketball team. He doesn’t have a lot of warmth to him. When he was asked why he purchased the team, he said, “Because they called me and said one was available.” He won’t commit outright and say that he’ll keep the team here. He won’t. He’s is someone who seems to be just in business mode. You know, he’s bought something for billions of dollars, so I get it. But it isn’t super endearing in your first impressions.

Miller: Mike, always good to talk to you. Thanks very much.

Richman: Thanks for having me.

Miller: Mike Richman is the host of the “Locked On Blazers” podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in to Think Out Loud on OPB and KLCC. I’m Dave Miller.

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