Chauncey Billups Praises Blazers For Complete LaMelo Ball Shutdown

The Portland Trail Blazers took down the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday, setting a franchise record in the process. Portland defeated the Hornets by a score of 141-88. It was a total beatdown for the Trail Blazers and they earned the big win over Charlotte.

In the game, Portland shut down Hornets' star point guard LaMelo Ball. Ball was limited to just five points in the game and couldn't muster up much of anything on the offensive end of the floor.

After the fact, Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups praised his team for the defensive performance on Ball. Billups highlighted forward Toumanu Camara for his assignment on the star guard.

“We really, really worried about LaMelo,” Billups said. “Toumani did an incredible job on him. It wasn’t just him, obviously, but it was his assignment.”

The Trail Blazers were effective in making Ball have to take bad shots and they put on a defensive display. The win helped the team snap a losing streak and they got back in the win column.

Portland was effective from beyond the 3-point line, hitting 20 threes en route to the win. It was a solid performance for this team and helped them blow out the Hornets off the floor.

“Anytime you make 20 threes in this league, you give yourself an incredible chance to score a lot of points,” Billups said. “We were just hitting on all cylinders.”

The Trail Blazers now sit with a record of 24-33 for the year, sitting in 13th place within the Western Conference standings. They are 6-4 over their past 10 games overall and the team continues to fight for a possible playoff spot.

While the likelihood of Portland making the postseason is low, the Trail Blazers will fight until the end of the season. The team sits 4.5 games back of the final Play-In spot in the standings so if they can put together a few solid weeks of basketball, anything is possible.

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