Trendon Watford, 'MVP Of The Trip,' Sparks Comeback Win Versus Wiz

WASHINGTON, DC -- It’s been Trendon Watford’s road trip and the rest of the Trail Blazers are just along for the ride.

After playing 60 minutes total in the month of January, Watford logged 30 minutes, posted a season-high in points and was the catalyst of a second-half rally that resulted in the Trail Blazers defeating the Wizards 124-116 in front of a sellout crowd of 20,476, many of whom were there to cheer on the visitors, Friday night at Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.

“So proud of Trendon. He fell out of the rotation and just stayed positive, worked his behind off,” said Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. “In this league, you’re always going to get that opportunity, so you can’t worry about when you’re not in it, you’ve got to worry about when you’re next going to be in it. And he did a great job of that and he’s just continuing to get better and better. I’m just so proud of him, he’s just such a good basketball player.”

The Trail Blazers are now 26-26 overall, 12-15 on the road and 2-0 in the first two games of a three-game trip. Portland has now won three-straight and five of their last six to pull into a tie with the Warriors for ninth in the Western Conference standings. The win also broke a six-game Wizards winning streak.

Though it sure didn’t seem as though that would be the case in the first half Friday night in Washington, DC. Portland got off to an incredibly slow start yet again, with the Wizards taking a 15-2 lead less than four minutes into the game. The Blazers would trail by as many as 20 in the first quarter, and while they played better in the second quarter, they still found themselves down 18 going into the intermission.

And while poor starts are nothing new for this time, Friday’s first-half performance might have been one of their worst of the season.

“We talk about these good starts but for some reason our team is just so much better when our backs are against the wall,” said Billups. “I’ve been on teams like that before, so I understand it, but it’s a dangerous place to live. I came in at halftime and I just told them ‘I don’t recognize us. This is not us. That’s not what we do.’”

Even in a season replete with double-digit halftime deficits, the seriousness of Billups’ accusation stood out.

“(Billups) just was like ‘This ain’t us,’” said Damian Lillard. “That might have been the first time he said that. We’ve had times where he’s said ‘We’re better than this, we know what we supposed to be doing, we talked about this,’ but he’s never said like ‘I don’t recognize the team.’ And I don’t think there’s been a half of a game that felt like that this season. It wasn’t just that we weren’t playing well, it just felt dry. Step slow, we weren’t executing at either end of the floor. And I think we knew it. Everybody was just like ‘Alright, we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to pick it up.’ And we did that.”

Indeed they did.

First, it was Anfernee Simons punishing the Wizards from the perimeter. Portland ran its first play of the second half for Simons, which resulted in a made three, and would continue to feed the fifth-year guard to the tune of 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the third quarter alone.

“(Simons) hit the first one and it was the quality of the make for me,” said Lillard. “When I saw the quality of the make that he had, I was like, we had two plays and I just called his first play again like ‘Same play.’ And we talked about how they were playing it and he popped back and I threw it to him, he hit. We just kind of played through that same play for like maybe six possessions straight and he was just flowing and he was hitting shots. My job as a point guard and his backcourt mate is when I recognize something like that and the ball is going in like that, we’ve got to ride it out and try to keep finding opportunities for him.”

But as Simons and Lillard started to draw more attention in the second half, someone else had to take on the role of playmaking. It would be Watford who would answer the call, just as he did in Wednesday’s win in Memphis.

“It’s easy playing with guys like Dame, easy playing with guys like Ant because they attract so much attention,” said Watford. “So they hitting me in the pocket and after it’s just doing what I like to do: make plays and just reading the defense on the back line.”

Since being thrust into duty due to Jusuf Nurkic sitting out until after the All-Star break with a left calf strain and despite playing just 60 minutes total in the month of January, the 6-8 forward/center in his second season out of LSU has logged 52 minutes in the last two games, and has looked great doing it.

“Just staying ready, that’s my job,” said Watford. “I think that’s where a lot of young players mess up at, just not being ready when opportunity comes. I just wanted to be ready cause you’ve got to take advantage of it. Sadly, Nurk went down so I just wanted to be ready and take advantage.”

But after playing a low key role, albeit important, in the win versus the Grizzlies, Watford was much louder in Friday’s contest. He confounded the Wizards on the offensive end, using his ability to put the ball on the floor, shoot from three and
create for his teammates to spark Portland’s second-half rally.

“Honestly it was all T-Wat,” said Drew Eubanks, who is splitting time with Watford at center with Nurkic sidelined. “If we don’t have Trendon we don’t win the game. Nobody else was as important as Trendon. Nobody could guard him, nobody could stay in front of him, nobody could stop the float. We call him Trendon ‘Pocket’ Watford now, so when you hit it in the pocket with Trendon, he’s unstoppable.”

And on defense, he helped hold Kristaps Porzingis, who had 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting in the first half, in check in the second. His versatility also allowed for Portland to switch on the perimeter, resulting in Washington shooting 10 percentage points worse from three in the second half than they did in the first.

“He’s been the MVP of the road trip,” said Lillard of Watford. “He’s been special. I think we’ve always known what he was capable of as far as being a playmaker and how versatile he is, being able to guard one through five. He rebounds, he can handle, he makes plays, he’s smart, he’s confident and I think it’s really been working for us in the last two games.”

With Simons dialed in from three, Watford playing at his own pace and Josh Hart finding his rhythm on offense -- he went 5-of-5 from the field for 11 points in the fourth quarter alone -- Portland took their first lead of the game at 102-101 with 7:41 to play. After swapping the lead a few more times, Portland would go on a 13-4 run to take control of the game. Portland would seal the victory with a Watford steal that led to a wide open Simons dunk with 1:25 to play, a fitting end to an impressive come-from-behind victory.

“We knew what we needed to do,” said Watford. “We came out in the first quarter, sort of had a letdown, dug ourselves a big hole. But in the second quarter we were still doing what we needed to do, we just had some tough breaks with offensive rebounds, stuff like that. We just wanted to come out in the third quarter and hit first. That was (Billups’) message the whole second half was to hit first, and I think we did.”

Watford finished with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting from three, five assists, three rebounds and a steal in 30 minutes.

“When he gets in the middle, when Dame or Ant gets hot and they start to show them an extra body, get it to Trendon in the pocket,” said Billups. “He’s just a playmaker. Whether he’s scoring with his floater tonight or he’s finding guys cutting behind the defense, you feel comfortable when the ball is in his hands. And then I thought he got some tough rebounds, too. He was in some tough situations -- we played a switching defense, he was guarding a lot of guards. I thought he impacted the game everywhere.”

Simons finished 11-of-19 from the field and 9-of-12 from three for 33 points to go with six assists and five rebounds in 37 minutes. Lillard posted 29 points, six assists and three rebounds in 40 minutes.

Hart came one rebound short of a double-double with 21 points and nine rebounds. Jerami Grant, who played Friday after sitting out the second half of Wednesday’s win with concussion-like symptoms, added 10 points, eight rebounds, three assists and a steal in 36 minutes.

Brad Beal led all scorers with 34 points in the losing effort.

Next up, the Trail Blazers wrap up the trip versus the Bulls Saturday night in Chicago. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m.