Portland Trail Blazers need a Little more Nassir
Simons on offense, Nassir on defense
A rough start to the Portland Trail Blazers season became even rougher when they had to play without Damian Lillard (core muscle injury) and CJ Mccollum (punctured lung) for an extended period. Simons finally got the chance to start, and so did Nassir Little. Simons began to light up the scoreboard nightly, doing his best Dame impersonation.
When Billups moved small forward Norman Powell to shooting guard, Little got his chance to start as well. He began to emerge as the teams’ best perimeter defender.
Tasked with guarding anyone from opposing point guards to power forwards (or even defending the team’s integrity), Little’s effort on the court became contagious. Center Jusuf Nurkic became consistent again effort-wise. After moving to the bench, Robert Covington seemed to come around defensively. Even CJ Elleby and Simons started to look like capable defenders.
In Littles’ last 12 games, where he played 30 or more minutes, the team went 8-4. So the efforts began to show up in the win-loss column. In January, before his season-ending shoulder injury, Little was tearing it up. He averaged 13.1 points with 5.7 rebounds per game while shooting 40 percent from three-point range. Stats put up while he was the starting small forward for team-winning ball games.
“AHHHHHHH!!”
Nassir Little, my goodness 😳 pic.twitter.com/Pb1xbMu1nh
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 13, 2021
Next: Page 3 – Reminders