Blazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups Calls Blowout Loss to Clippers 'Embarrassing'

The LA Clippers got their first win on Monday night, and it was a 30-point blowout of the Portland Trail Blazers. For new head coach Chauncey Billups, this was just his third career game as a head coach, and he was unsurprisingly upset with the outcome.
As reported by Casey Holdahl of trailblazers.com, Billups said postgame that "It was embarrassing, it was really embarrassing. Just the effort, I didn’t think that we started the game off with the right mindset. We talked in the locker room about the Clippers, they hadn’t won a game yet, two tough losses, they were desperate to get a win, you’re at home. We tried to defend against that but from the very first play of the game — we turned the ball over, we couldn’t get the ball where we needed to go, their pressure really hurt us. It just continued to snowball the rest of the way.”
Billups added that “We played like we were tired today, but there was no reason to be tired. We’re in striking distance at halftime. We turned it over a ton, we just weren’t playing very well. Talked about it at the half, showed a few clips at the half and we just didn’t respond. We never competed like we wanted to win the basketball game, and that’s disappointing.”
The Trail Blazers have begun their season 1-2, and have not gotten the performance from Damian Lillard that they have grow accustomed to. Through three games, Lillard is averaging 17.0 PPG on 36% from the field and 8.3% from deep. While he will almost certainly turn it around sooner rather than later, the Clippers did a good job containing him in the blowout win on Monday.
Related Articles
Paul George Blasts Referees After Clippers Lose to Warriors

Joey Linn is a credentialed writer covering the NBA and WNBA for On SI. Covering the LA Clippers independently in 2018, then for Fansided and 213Hoops from 2019-2021, Joey joined On SI to cover the Clippers after the 2020-21 season. Graduating from Biola University in 2022 with a Communication Studies degree, Joey served as Biola's play-by-play announcer for their basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer teams. Joey's work on Biola's broadcasts and in the classroom earned him the Outstanding Communication Studies Student of the year award in 2022. Joey covers the NBA full-time, primarily serving as a Clippers beat writer.
Follow joeylinn_