{"id":713463,"date":"2026-04-18T21:15:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713463\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T21:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:15:19","slug":"theyre-young-too-what-trail-blazers-are-saying-about-facing-spurs-in-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713463\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They’re Young, Too’: What Trail Blazers Are Saying About Facing Spurs in First Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Deni Avdija had about 10 minutes to take it in. <\/p>\n

After leading the charge of the Portland Trail Blazers’ come-from-behind victory over the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, his squad’s next opponent was already waiting. Avdija called out the common denominator between the two.<\/p>\n

“The (San Antonio Spurs<\/a>) are a great team,” Avdija said. “Very talented. They’re young, too … it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be a fight. We’re going to bring everything we’ve got.”<\/p>\n

Behind Victor Wembanyama \u2014 San Antonio’s not-so-secret weapon who has yet to face Portland this season \u2014 the Spurs managed a 62-20 record, good for the West’s No. 2 seed.<\/p>\n

Their historic turnaround hasn’t been glanced over by any team in the league. But despite similar experience levels, the Trail Blazers know what they’re in for.<\/p>\n

And more specifically, who they’re in for.<\/p>\n

“Wembanyama is a big emphasis for us,\u201d Trail Blazers interim coach\u00a0Tiago Splitter said.<\/a> \u201cHe brings something different that other teams don\u2019t have … he\u2019s a 7-foot-(4) guy that can handle, shoot, guard the rim (and) the perimeter. It\u2019s not a secret, he\u2019s a very good player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Deni Avdija had about 10 minutes to take it in. After leading the charge of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-713463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116427785705534038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}