The Blazers big man is starting to find his groove, thanks to his teammates.
The Portland Trail Blazers fell to the Chicago Bulls 104-96 on Sunday night in a game where little seemed to go right offensively.
One bright spot for the Blazers was the continued solid play of center Deandre Ayton, who had 22 points and 12 rebounds in the loss.
Despite averaging fewer than 13 points per game for the Blazers since being acquired from the Phoenix Suns, over the last three games Ayton has scored 18, 20, and 22 points for Portland.
After the game, Blazers coach Chauncey Billups spoke about his team’s effort to get Ayton more involved in the offense:
Said Billups, ‘You know, I think Ant [Simons], and Malcolm [Brogdon], and Scoot [Henderson] and those guys have made a real effort to make sure to get him the ball in that pocket. Or, he can roll behind the defense and throwing it up for him. Just made a real concerted effort. You know, we’ve got to try and get more out of D.A. And we’ve been doing that. He’s been great for us. Now we’ve got to just make sure we don’t forget about everything else we’ve been doing, you know?
While Ayton hasn’t quite shown the consistency in Portland that Blazers fans have hoped for, and has taken entirely too much heat from the national media, he has shown an ability to dominated stretches of the game from the rim out to 15 feet while being a monster on the glass.
With a plethora of guards all capable of getting their own shot, Ayton can sometimes get lost in the mix. But against the Bulls, the team ran several lob plays for him when he was able to get behind his defender. That coupled with his soft touch from 12-15 feet resulted in multiple easy looks for the Blazers.
After three solid games, hopefully Ayton is starting to get into a rhythm he can carry through the rest of the season. He’ll have a big challenge Monday night, when Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers come to town.
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