Trail Blazers’ Anfernee Simons Sends Nuggets Home with Kiss Off Glass

Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons sized up Russell Westbrook and the Denver Nuggets from the top of the Moda Center key Thursday night. As Simons began to make his move in the waning seconds of a tie game, Nuggets guard Jamal Murray threatened a double-team that never came. So Simons accelerated right and sent the Nuggets home with a floating kiss off the glass as the buzzer sounded.

“Once you finally get those opportunities one on one,” Simons said about the game-winning play. “You’re like, ‘Alright, I gotta seize the opportunity.”

Simons seized it. And the shot seized a 126-124 win for the Blazers, their first since Nov. 29. It didn’t die easy Thursday night, but the Blazers’ long losing streak — one that felt even longer due to breaks in the schedule — is dead at six games.

“It stopped the bleeding, for sure,” Simons said.

Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups told reporters the games that break losing streaks typically aren’t out-of-nowhere steps in the right direction; teams work toward that form in the games leading up to the breakthrough. Billups said that was the case with this streak. He thought his players performed well over the last few games, but this time they followed through for the win.

“This is good validation for our guys to continue to keep playing the right way and trusting each other,” Billups said.

Before the game-winner, Portland squandered a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter during a drought that sucked the air out of the home crowd. The looks were good, they just didn’t drop. Thoughts drifted to only six days ago, when the Blazers gave up a 17-point fourth-quarter lead in a 118-116 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the same building. Denver even took a 122-120 lead with under a minute left.

Still, the Blazers stayed the course and didn’t “get riled up,” to quote Simons. They made just enough plays and caught just enough breaks to squeak out the win, in spite of 34 points and eight assists from three-time MVP Nikola Jokic.

“We kept hanging in,” Billups said. “I was proud of our group for that.”

“We showed tremendous composure throughout the last two minutes,” Simons added.

Apart from the buzzer-beater and the resolve Portland showed against Denver, there were a lot of other things to like from the game. Portland forward Deni Avdija continues to play like a revelation after a slow offensive start to the season. He’s been Portland’s most consistent performer over the last 10 games and change. Thursday he came through again with 19 points on 6-9 shooting in 21 minutes. He got off to a 5-5 start, hitting his first three triples, as his confidence and willingness to shoot the ball seems to increase each game.

“More than anything, I think it’s just him getting more comfortable with his teammates and vice-versa,” Billups said about Avdija’s growing confidence. “Those are the things that really make you take off.”

The Blazers tallied 29 assists. That number probably should’ve been closer to 34 or more, but six Blazers still scored at least 13 points, evidence of how the offense carved the Nuggets up all night. Before that fourth-quarter drought stalled some of the momentum, the Blazers hit the 100-point mark for CHA-LU-PAS — sorry, I mean McNuggets— late in the third quarter. A possession later, Simons cashed a step-back 3 at the buzzer to get the Blazers to 104. A man sitting courtside wearing a full-on Grinch costume hugged a man next to him, encapsulating the merry scene, his heart surely growing three sizes at the sight of it all.

Maybe most important, Simons and Shaedon Sharpe played like the dynamic backcourt people have been hoping to see this season. Sharpe scored 27 points on 9-18 shooting, while Simons just barely outdid him with 28 points on 11-20 shooting. He also dropped 10 assists.

“Every time the ball swung to either one of them, they were just aggressive to make the right play and not necessarily the shot,” Billups said.

On the final play, when the double-team didn’t come, the right play was the shot. Simons came through to give the Blazers the win and add another game-winner to his catalogue. After this one, Simons wasn’t greeted in the locker room with water bottle showers or even the game ball — the lack off hoopla indicating everything was business as usual.

“It’s a compliment,” he said. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”