Centre for the Portland Trail Blazers Deandre Ayton played a key role in the club’s 109-104 victory over his old team, the Phoenix Suns, on Tuesday night, but he brushed off the notion that he had any extra incentive.
After collecting 15 rebounds and scoring 16 points, Ayton remarked, “It’s just another team.” “I believe that the excitement and feelings around it have faded. And all I’ve been doing is focusing on becoming a Trailblazer and defining our identity. I can’t really worry about the Suns right now since I’m too concentrated about that. It’s only in the path.
Teammates Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant, however, weren’t quite buying that Ayton had no added incentive facing the team that selected him No. 1 overall in 2018 and traded him to the Blazers in October.
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The trick moving forward is extracting that version of Ayton on most nights, rather than sporadically.
“We’ve got to figure out how to keep him motivated every night because when he plays that well, we’re a lot better team,” Grant said.
Ayton played 40 minutes against the Suns, and although he went just 6 of 18 from the floor, he was more assertive about getting off shots. His 18 attempts were a season high. Ayton took fewer than 10 shots in five of his previous seven outings, and he is averaging 10.4 on the season. He managed to average 12.1 points per game over that stretch because he connected on 58.1% of his shots.
For the season, he is averaging 12.6 points and 10.7 rebounds on 55.7% shooting. Last season with the Suns, he averaged 18.0 points on 58.9% shooting while taking 13.2 shots per game.
Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said he had been contemplating playing Ayton more minutes in order to get him going. Ayton is averaging 31.6 on the season.
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“Coach wanted me to get established early and get my flow and rhythm early,” Ayton said. “The way we do that is when my teammates are looking out for me and finding me in my spots that I like.”
Billups had no issue with Ayton’s poor shooting on the night.
“Some of those shots he missed, I’m just happy he took them,” Billups said.
Ayton shook off a 1-for-4 start in the first quarter — when the Blazers fell behind 36-20 — to score seven points in the second quarter, but on 2-of-7 shooting. He came up big in the second half with 10 points and seven rebounds while the Blazers played one of their better halves of the season.
Although Ayton doesn’t always play with the same aggressiveness he showed against the Suns, his lack of shot attempts isn’t entirely on him. The Blazers have not run a ton of plays for Ayton this season, and he has been playing with several guards, and Grant, who hunt for their shots more often than look for the big man in the middle.
Simons, who missed 18 games with a thumb injury and thus time developing chemistry with Ayton, has rarely met an open shot he didn’t take in his career. The challenge ahead is getting Simons and Ayton to work well together to enhance the opportunities for both to score and make plays for others.
This is especially important when opposing teams blitz Simons to force the ball out of his hands. Billups said he saw good progress against the Suns in reacting to such strategies by both Ayton and Simons.
“There were some instances in the game today that happened when they started blitzing (Simons) and DA was catching the ball high up the floor,” Billups said. “I thought he made some excellent passes on time, on target to our guys.”
Ayton said he worked harder to roll faster out of pick-and-rolls and to get to his spots sooner to help Simons read plays quicker. Ayton also said that he is gradually learning how the league plays Simons and how he can make them pay for sending him too much attention.
“I’m just seeing how teams respect him around the league and teams throw different coverages at him,” Ayton said. “Tonight, the ball was moving a lot to where he got me in the pocket and just had some looks. That’s what they gave us and that’s what we took.”
The duo’s efficiency and execution in this area should only improve as time goes on, Billups said.
“I think those two will just continue to get better and better and more comfortable with each other,” Billups said. “And then we’ll start, on the back side of it, getting more comfortable with DA and giving him some reads. I like that they stayed aggressive the whole time and just kind of figured it out.”
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