Portland Trail Blazers’ Chauncey Billups Criticizes Recent Schedule

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups isn’t happy with the logistics of his team’s recent schedule.

“It’s just a terrible scheduling thing,” Billups said following Portland’s 119-112 home loss to the Detroit Pistons Sunday night. “But it is what it is.”

The matchup against Detroit marked Portland’s return home from a seven-game road trip, but it wasn’t a long stay. After the loss, the Blazers immediately flew to San Francisco in order to play one more road game Monday night against the Golden State Warriors. The home-and-road back-to-back will conclude a slate of nine games in 14 days for Portland, including eight on the road and two back-to-backs.

Billups took exception with the herky jerky nature of the recent slate, calling Sunday’s home game essentially another road stop on an extended trip.

“You come off a seven-game trip, two weeks, and you turn around and gotta play tomorrow on the road,” Billups said. “We should’ve just played the Pistons at [Oakland Arena] and then played the Warriors at [the Chase Center in San Francisco].”

Playing against weaker competition in the early half of the road trip, the Blazers ripped off three wins in a row. But as the competition stiffened and the games piled up, so have the losses. The Blazers finished the road trip 4-3 and have dropped three straight after Sunday’s narrow loss to Detroit.

The good news for Portland: After Monday in San Francisco, the Blazers get to take a break from their nomadic lifestyle. Portland begins a seven-game homestand Wednesday against the New York Knicks that runs through March 25.