Chauncey Billups Talks to Media About Preseason Progress, Injuries | Portland Trail Blazers

Chauncey Billups Talks to Media About Preseason Progress, Injuries | Portland Trail Blazers

Coach, it was a very I mean, I feel like I’m a broken record, but a very intense practice. I mean, the guys were getting after it, you know, calling out the the refs. Psych. What did you like about today? Yeah, it was good. We had a good day off yesterday. We needed it, man. We needed it. Um, so it was good to just get back in here and and get after it and compete and some of the things that, you know, we wanted to just kind of be better at uh from our first couple games. So, it was good to work. How great was it to see Hansen get into the groove like he did last game? Yeah, it was awesome, man. Um, you know, it’s crazy. It kind of came out of nowhere because, uh, you know, he was he struggled a little bit in the first half and then it just kind of boom. It just like took off like a rocket and, uh, it was fun to watch it, you know, it was fun to be a part of it. How do you kind of approach these last two preseason games? Do you have a dress rehearsal or anything like that? Like how do you roll down the not so much? Not Not really. I mean, just I want to keep working on our stuff. you know, you may end up playing the guys a little longer uh into the game, but yeah, just, you know, I I love the dress rehearsal type of thing to be able to play against other teams. Um, but yeah, I I don’t go I really don’t go too crazy about it because we have so many days in between. Yeah. You know, our first game. Keep tinkering with the lineup and rotations and stuff as you’ve been doing. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. So, probably so. Uh, I hate to ask you, but we got to ask you about the injuries just cuz they’re kind of mounting. Where where are things at with Matise? He’s doing good. He’s ramping up. Um, he’s starting to do more and more, you know. So, um, I don’t obviously have a timeline, but on the court starting to do more and more. So, I’m I’m him and Rob, you know, to be honest. So, I’ve been I’ve been kind of happy with where they are. I hate that they miss most of camp, but cool where they’re at. Did Matisa’s thing just come? Has he played at all in camp or has he just been doing individuals? No, no, no five on five yet in camp. But man, it’s crazy. It did come kind of out of nowhere because T had an incredible spring. Yeah. In September. So, yeah, that sucked. Do anything? No. No. T didn’t do anything today, so he’s probably not going to go. Still a little sore. I’m not sure, man. I’m not sure. Do you envision him sitting out the preseason just saving him for the regular season? Jamani. No, I don’t anticipate that. Yeah. When he’s when he’s ready to go, he’s Yeah. No. No. Yeah. But if he can play, he’s I want him I want him to play. Um, how do you think about the team’s chemistry so far? And chemistry? Yes. Team chemistry. What was the other question? Oh, and um, what is your expectation for tomorrow’s game for tomorrow? Yeah. Um, I think our team chemistry is coming along pretty good. I really do. um more clips and clips in the games. You play the game, you rewatch the game, you pull the clips, and I think our synergy and chemistry has been pretty good. Um we’ll keep getting better the more we get to know one another. So, I’m happy with that. And then tomorrow’s game, you know, I just expect us to come out and compete, you know, and and and play hard and try to get better. What are some of the takeaways from last game playing against Warriors? like things you think did well, things that you you expect they might like clean up a little bit heading tomorrow. Mhm. Yeah, I thought we played a good game. Obviously, a good three quarters at least, you know, um our physicality was pretty good. Our pace was pretty good. Um we obviously made some shots. Um our extra efforts in the game was high level. You know, those are some of my big takeaways. Um for them, you know, I you know, you just preseason you just never know. You never know who plays who. Stephan Draymond didn’t play yesterday. They probably played tomorrow. You You just never know. But I’m I’m more so much more concerned with us and how we play and how we continue to get better. And on that note, you’ve had two games to be able to get some real good like size them up. What are your biggest takeaways? Like what are you working on now? Next step from for us. Yeah. Um I I like where our pace has been. I think we can even get better there. Um, one of the key things for us this season will be the rebounding piece. And uh, been pretty good through two games, but we we could be so much better. You know, just in terms of our defensive rebounding, offensive rebounding, we’ve been we’ve been we’ve been awesome. The defensive piece, um, I think we’ve been pretty good, better, but we we there’s some more levels that that we going to need to get to there. Um, defensively, I think our our our defensive pressure has been good probably 70% of the time. You know, we could be better there. So, we got we got a lot to work on, man. But I think we we’ve been in a pretty good spot. How much your offense How much of your offense is in? You still setting that bit by bit? Um, we got a little bit in offensively, you know. Um, I’m happy where our offense is at and some of our movements and some of our cutting and things. We’re starting to get better, starting to get more familiar. I was just curious, why do you think that you guys have been such a solid team offensively on the re on the boards, but not so much on the defensive boards? Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, Brooke, we we offensively like we’re in some of these really great spots um to go after and crash and things like that and um we’ve been really intentional about it. And then defensively, you know, it’s it’s weird like uh we’re in we’re in different spots defensively a lot of times. Like for instance, like Tummani is a great crasher, you know, um, offensively, but a lot of times defensively he’s chasing the best player, so he’s not in better positions to crash. And, you know, sometimes because DC is such a good rebounder, we just kind of like let off the gas and think he’s going to go get them all. Um, which is not fair. Um, but yeah, we got to we got to I got to coach it better and we just have we just have to be better about it. Thank y’all. All right.

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