The 12 Highlights of Portland Trail Blazers Christmas Vol. 2

The Portland Trail Blazers are struggling through the 2024-25 NBA season, but the games haven’t all amounted to lumps of coal. There have been some fun wins and joyous highlights along the way to add levity to the season — and dare I say, even some hope.

Given it’s the holidays, we’ll highlight the good from this year in Blazer’s Edge’s second annual production of The 12 Highlights of Trail Blazers Christmas! Just like last year’s inaugural celebration, we’ll count down the top 12 plays of the season so far. It takes inspiration from 12 Days of Christmas, but instead of your true love bringing turtle doves, you’ll get a lot of Shaedon Sharpe dunks.

This is my own personally curated list. I used my own subjective, mysterious criteria to establish the rankings that took into account a number of elements — play quality, crowd reaction, play-by-play commentary, moment in the game, etc. Mainly, it just came down to how a highlight made me feel when I watched it live and again on replay.

Without further ado, enjoy unwrapping these highlights!

12. (Nov. 12 vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves): Scoot Henderson gets the countdown rolling with a circus and-1 shot to beat the shot-clock buzzer during a hot stretch versus the T-Wolves.

11. (Nov. 13 vs. the Timberwolves): Kris Murray took a nice feed from Donovan Clingan and hammered it home against the Steiffel Tower, much to the delight of his teammates on the bench.

10. (Dec. 8 vs. the Los Angeles Lakers): Henderson got rewarded for his willingness to put up an end-of-quarter heave by banking the sucker in.

9. (Dec. 21 vs. the San Antonio Spurs): We have our first Sharpe sighting with this nasty alley oop slam, a play magnified by the unhinged and goofy (in a good way) call by Blazers broadcaster Kevin Calabro.

8. (Nov. 17 vs. the Atlanta Hawks): We immediately go back to the dunking well that is Shaedon Sharpe, as he plucks this Deni Avdija dime out of a defender’s grasp to stuff it home.

7. (Nov. 17 vs. the Hawks): Later, we’ll highlight a game-winning shot, so it’s only right that we highlight a game-winning stop. Toumani Camara put the clamps on All-Star Hawks guard Trae Young in the closing seconds on Nov. 17, forcing a turnover to secure the win (go to the 6:05 mark of the video below to see the play).

6. (Dec. 23 vs. the Dallas Mavericks): Sticking with Camara, this time he got it done on the offensive end by packing it on Daniel Gafford.

5. (Dec. 6 vs. the Utah Jazz): Not a lot went right in this December matchup with the Jazz, save for this sky-walking, one-handed alley oop from Sharpe that made the rounds on social media.

4. (Dec. 13 vs. the Spurs): Avdija showed off the true meaning of turbo with this coast-to-coast slam dunk that fired up the Moda Center. Bonus points go to the play for how fired up Avdija got, too.

3. (Dec. 19 vs. the Denver Nuggets): Anfernee Simons beat the Nuggets and the buzzer with this floating kiss off the glass, snapping a six-game losing streak in dramatic fashion.

2. (Nov. 13 vs. the Timberwolves): Perhaps, the most exciting moment of the Blazers season so far wasn’t a play, but the sequence of plays when rookie Donovan Clingan ruled the paint in a spirited home win against Minnesota. Clingan posted a career-high eight blocks on Gobert and company, including five in the fourth quarter. Here are the full individual highlights from Clingan’s big night.

1. (Nov. 13 vs. Timberwolves): It feels only right that this list ends with Portland’s highlight king, Shaedon Sharpe. Something must’ve been in the air Nov. 13 because before Clingan’s fourth-quarter blocking spree, Sharpe threw down his nastiest jam of the year on a vicious tip-slam.

That’s it for this year’s Nice List. Did I miss any of your favorite highlights? Do you agree with the order of these plays? Let us know in the comments section below!