I don’t know how it happened, but the Trailblazers just blew the doors off the Suns, winning 124 to 76. Things started off well enough for the Suns, but then, oh look, here comes Pat Connaughton to bring Portland back to parity, and I guess that was so dispiriting for the home team that they completely gave up and hoped the fans would just leave or something. Check out the shot at 0:45. See Devin Booker’s reaction from the bench? He knows that it’s bullcrap, that some dude who sucked for almost the entirety of his first two years in the league suddenly turned into Klay Thompson. He knows it’s bullcrap, and he knows that he, along with the rest of his team, is done trying for the night.
Credit to Connaughton for his part in the utter demolition that took place at the Talking Stick Resort Arena (what the heck is a talking stick anyway?). He started off super hot, caused the opposition to fold all by himself, then did some more damage later on as a way of saying “I run this bitch now”. There was little besides a 21-point explosion in the last game of the season last year that made me think he could be this good, but he surprised me tonight. I definitely got some “Jake Layman NBA Debut” vibes from this performance; I hope you did as well. If not, go check out that vid right now.