Tiago Splitter Discusses Road Trip, Injury Updates After Practice
Do you have any updates on like Matise and Drew? Can we just go through where you’re at with your guys? Just get it out of the way. Yeah, I mean Drew and Matis did some non-cont stuff. Um, you know, they’re getting better. Um, but still, uh, did practice um, like contact with the team. Okay. And that’s just sort of individual stuff off to the side they’re working on then. Yeah. you know, just watching what we do uh collectively and and doing some individual workouts, you know, shooting. Okay. Trying to move a little bit more u slowly and surely. Do you have any handle on I I mean I think Drew was supposed to be one to two weeks and we’re at three weeks now. So, it’s just dragging on. You don’t have an idea of when he might be injured? No, I don’t I don’t have an idea. You know how those you know soft tissues injuries are. They’re tricky. You got to be careful. Um, you know, when we give those dates, it’s just something that we think, but um, they always tricky. I mean, even when I play basketball, it’s just it’s hard to give a date and be sure about it. Sometimes it’s shorter, sometimes it’s longer, but it’s hard. And then Rob and DC, same. Uh, Rob was was doing contact. Uh, he played um he practiced full time. DC did some drills, not the whole thing. Um it’s getting better but um not the whole thing. How do you come away from that road trip kind of what was your your takeaway from those four games? My takeaway um so I think we compete for three games the way I like it. Uh the last one was was hard having you know DC and Rob out. I think we were down 20 now the way we won. We came back on the third uh have a chance to you know get back to the game but it was just too much effort. The team couldn’t couldn’t do it. Um short-handed. Um injuries is a big thing right now. Um we got to get guys healthy. We got to you know bring our uh get our mojo together and you know be able to to compete for 48 minutes. And um that’s what I’m waiting for to get the guys back and you know develop the young guys of course get minutes for them and and put guys in different positions. You know Danny is is stepping up uh so big and and playing point guard for us learning how to play with the ball for the most part and you know trying to take the positive out of out of this. Scoot is Scoot getting any closer at all or what’s he what’s he where he at? Well, he’s again doing some some drills. Not not of the team though. Everything individually. Uh but kind of like the the Drew situation where you got to be careful. How would you kind of describe where the team is at from a from a mental standpoint right now? You guys are good. The energy is good. Uh they all understand what’s going on. Um you know, but energy is good. We had a good practice today. Uh it’s hard to have like in middle of the season, you know, a full practice taped going five on five. We had we had finally one of those and um the guys had good energy, good approach. Uh we got better today. You kind of were joking the last time you were here about how you had your first practice and now I look at the next couple of weeks and you have a lot of opportunities to do that. What are you most focusing on and looking forward to, I guess, about that opportunity, the next couple weeks? Yeah, to get a little bit more organized offensively, defensively, uh we are trying different things, uh different matchups, uh we call radical defense when we go two against one and we blitz and we put uh bigs on different on a wing and try to protect the rim, you know, even our zone and get back to man. So all those little changes uh get better at that defensively. Um and then at the same time you have a time kind of like to get guys healthy like you don’t have the you know the the stress of a game on a player to you know so they have some time off and to do their rehab and get stronger in the weight room those things to to you know face them the the the rest of the season and stay healthy. How would you say Caleb and Sidi’s games have grown during this stretch where they’ve been relied on so heavily? Yeah, I mean Sidi uh we ask him a lot. Uh he’s starting games for us. He’s guarding people. He’s guarding bigs. He guarding smalls all over the place. Rebounding for us, pushing the ball. Um yeah, I think he’s growing. I think he he in a different space that he when he started the season. Um Caleb, same thing, you know. Um, we were thinking for him to go between us and the GLeague and get experience with that and he’s just playing minutes, important minutes, playing important games, important shots. Of course, he’s being up and down and it’s part of it, you know, as a as a rookie. Um, so he got to understand that we need him more regularly and be be there every night. So that’s part of the process of, you know, growing your game in the NBA. Were you as confident? Were you as confident as Caleb your rookie season? Oh, he’s confident. I’m confident on him. I think he he thinks he’s going to make every shot. And that’s the great part of him. Um, now he got to play better on defense. He got to know our our stuff better. He got to move off the ball better. There’s a lot of thing to improve, but um, you know, just to be more regular in and especially on defense. Sounds like a focus is communication with this team. uh based upon what Tummani said, is that something you bring up or is that something they’re bringing up or or I mean everyone we know that we got to talk on defense and and again uh there’s different players every time on the court. Uh guys that didn’t expect to play now they got to speak up. They gota uh you know uh really ask their teammates to to be on the spots and let them know that a screen is coming uh or what type of defense we are. We are between zone and man we got to speak up. Uh all those little adjustments on the court uh sometimes got to be got to be made by them. Uh I cannot dictate everything that’s going on from the bench. Sometimes too far. So they got to do those do those little talks in the court. That’s why we asking, right? Like you you guys got to speak more. You guys got to um demand from your teammates uh in a good way to get better those type of talks in the game are important and we are trying to get better at that. And so do you bring that up here? Like so that’s something you’re constantly talking about. Oh yes. That’s that’s a huddle and a timeout. That’s a pregame film. That’s a postgame film. um something that we talk a lot and how to communicate better on the court.
Trail Blazers acting head coach Tiago Splitter takes questions from the media after practice at the team’s facility in Tualatin on December 9, 2025
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