summer league

Portland Trail Blazers

Check out the best moments from Portland's 3-2 showing in Las Vegas.

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2023 NBA Summer League Mixtape

Casey Holdahl

Greetings from the real NBA offseason. With Portland's 2023 Las Vegas Summer League in the books, the time was right to record the 50th edition of The Brief Case podcast, which you can listen and subscribe to below...

• The Trail Blazers ending their 2023 Las Vegas Summer League with a lopsided loss to the Miami Heat Sunday night

• How Portland came this close to qualifying for the 2023 Las Vegas Summer League tournament semifinals

• The play of Shaedon Sharpe, Jabari Walker, Scoot Henderson and Kris Murray in Las Vegas

• What might be next for the players on Portland's summer league roster who are not currently under contract for next season

You can subscribe to the Brief Case on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, IHeartRadio, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Pocket Casts, Deezer, PlayerFM. Thanks for listening to the first 50 episodes!

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Wrapping Up Summer League On The Brief Case, Episode 50

Coach Billups checks in with the ESPN broadcast crew during Portland's Summer League finale.

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Chauncey Billups ESPN Interview | 2023 NBA Summer League

The Trail Blazers close out this year's summer schedule with a loss to the Heat.

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Game Highlights: Trail Blazers 78, Heat 104 | 2023 NBA Summer League

Everything almost fell into place Friday night for the Trail Blazers. Almost.

With a 3-1 record and a +6.3 point differential, Portland went into the last day of preliminary round play at the Las Vegas Summer League in fifth place, just behind the cut line to qualify for the tournament semifinals. If they were to have an opportunity to defend their 2022 Las Vegas Summer League tournament championship, they’d need quite a bit of help.

And they almost got enough. A number of teams that started Friday at 2-1 -- Oklahoma City, Indiana, Miami, Los Angeles and San Antonio -- lost their fourth games and even those teams that did win to get to 3-1 -- LA Clippers, Dallas, Detroit -- didn’t so by large enough margins to surpass Portland’s point differential, which is the multi-team tiebreaker at Summer League.

So the Trail Blazers remained in fifth going into the penultimate game of the preliminary round: a tilt between the Suns and the undefeated Jazz. If Utah, 3-0 going into Friday’s contest, lost, Portland would jump into fourth, thus qualifying for the semifinals along with Cleveland, Houston (the only team Portland lost to in Las Vegas) and Brooklyn.

However, the Jazz refused to cooperate. Utah trailed by as many as nine and were down 87-86 late in the fourth but closed the game out by outscoring Phoenix 11-6 in the final three minutes to come away with a 97-93 victory. With the win, Utah improved to 4-0 to finish the preliminary round in third and ensure Portland would miss a chance to add another Summer League Tournament championship ring to their collection.

The Trail Blazers will now wrap up their 2023 Summer League by facing the 2-2 Miami Heat on Sunday in their fifth and final game in Las Vegas. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. on ESPN2.

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Blazers Just Miss Summer League Semis, Face Heat On Sunday

Greetings from North Portland! Now that both Brooke Olzendam, she of Trail Blazers TV, is back from the lake and I, Casey Holdahl of Trailblazers.com, am back from Las Vegas, it seemed like a good time to catch up on the latest doings in Rip City by recording yet another edition of The Blazers Balcony, which you can and should subscribe to below...

• The Trail Blazers going 3-1 at the 2023 Las Vegas Summer League

• Portland's hopes of repeating as Summer League champs being technically alive (at least as of the time of recording) and what needs to happen in order to advance

• Thoughts on what we saw from Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Jabari Walker, Kris Murray and Duop Reath in Las Vegas

• The official signings of Jerami Grant and Matisse Thybule and why those decisions were made

• Joe Cronin's comments in Las Vegas regarding the situation with Damian Lillard&nbsp;

• Losing in Las Vegas, Brooke's soccer futility, Pickles first pitch and not being a softball person 

You can subscribe to the Blazers Balcony on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Deezer, Spotify, I Heart Radio,  Pocket Casts and Pandora. 

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Podcast » The Blazers Balcony, Episode 96

Portland wins its third straight game of the summer by taking down Orlando in Las Vegas.

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Game Highlights: Trail Blazers 88, Magic 71 | 2023 NBA Summer League

If the Trail Blazers are to have any chance of repeating as Las Vegas Summer League Tournament champions, they’ll have to help themselves and will need a significant amount of help from outside.

With a 2-1 record, the Trail Blazers currently sit in 11th place in the Las Vegas Summer League standings with one scheduled game left to play, a 6 p.m. contest versus the Orlando Magic Thursday night on ESPN at Thomas & Mack Arena. And since it will take at least a 3-1 record to be one of the four teams that qualify for the tournament semifinal, Portland must win their game on Thursday -- Orlando is currently winless in three games in Las Vegas -- to have any chance of winning a second-straight Las Vegas Summer League tournament championship.

But winning Thursday’s contest alone won’t be enough, for multiple reasons.

First, there are currently three teams -- the Cavaliers, Rockets and Jazz -- that are 3-0 with one game to go. So if any of those three teams win their final game, they’re through to the tournament semifinal -- again, only the top four teams have an opportunity to play for the championship. So if you’re pulling for a summer league repeat, you want all three of those teams to lose their fourth game.

But with regard specifically to the Blazers, with 13 teams tied at 2-1 going into their last scheduled game, there is a mathematical certainty that multiple teams will finish tied at 3-1. And since point differential is the tiebreaker in the event of a multiple team tie, not only will the Trail Blazers need to best the Magic to get to 3-1, they’ll very likely need to do so by a significant margin.

At +2.7, Portland has the eighth-best point differential among the 13 teams with a 2-1 record -- for comparison, the Nets are the 2-1 team with the best point differential at +11.7 while the Bucks have the worst at -1.7 -- so if Portland is to have a legitimate chance of making the semifinal, they’ll need to win big. If you’re looking for reasons for optimism, the Magic are tied for the worst point differential at summer league at -12.

It’s also possible that we won’t know which four teams have qualified to play for the tournament championship until after all the games are completed Friday night. If the Cavaliers and Rockets, two of the three currently undefeated teams, win their games Thursday, we’ll know that only two spots are still up for grabs come Friday. However, the Jazz, the other undefeated team, play the Suns Friday night at 7:30 p.m., so we likely won’t know for sure which teams have qualified until after that game has been decided.

So if you're rooting for the Trail Blazers to repeat, you want Portland to win big versus Orlando, the undefeated teams to lose and the 2-1 teams above the Trail Blazers in the standings to lose, or at least win by small margins.

No word yet on the availability of Scoot Henderson (shoulder) and Keon Johnson (finger) for Portland's game versus Orlando Thursday night. The Blazers have started Michael Devoe, Shaedon Sharpe, Kris Murray, Jabari Walker and Ibou Badji in their last two games, both wins, in Las Vegas.

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Blazers With A Chance To Summer League Repeat, Though They'll Need Some Help

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