DENVER — Deni Avdija said Tiago Splitter has handled a difficult season at the top of the Portland Trail Blazers with calm, and the interim coach had another reason to feel steady on Tuesday night. Portland beat the San Antonio Spurs 106-103 in Game 2 to tie the first-round playoff series at 1-1.
Avdija said Splitter was thrown into a hard spot after Chauncey Billups was arrested in October as part of a federal gambling investigation, and he said the coach has answered it well. “It wasn’t easy for him to just all of a sudden take the head job. But I think he’s done phenomenal. He’s getting the best out of everybody,” Avdija said. “He’s believing in each and single one of his players, and we love playing for him. He’s a winner. He’s a competitor. He knows how it is to win a championship. He’s passionate, and he got all the tools to be a great coach, and that’s what he’s doing.”
Splitter was elevated to interim head coach in October after Billups was arrested, and he has guided Portland to a 42-40 record and a playoff berth after the team missed the postseason last season. That made Tuesday more than just a response game. It was another sign that Portland has stayed together through a stretch that began with a coaching shakeup and has been shadowed by the federal case around Billups, who pleaded not guilty in November to money laundering and wire fraud charges. Federal prosecutors accused him of conspiring to rig high-stakes poker games backed by the Mafia.
Behind the scenes, though, the picture has not been seamless. The Athletic reported that Tom Dundon has been in contact with other coaching candidates, including Josh Schertz, Ben McCollum and Michael Malone, before Malone chose to take the job at North Carolina. The same reporting said Dundon has not allowed two-way players to travel with the team on the road for playoff games, there were no free T-shirts for fans in Portland and staffers were checking out of hotels early to avoid late fees.
Splitter has tried to keep the room insulated from all of it. Before Tuesday’s Play-In Tournament victory over the Phoenix Suns, he told the team not to get pulled into social media or television coverage, saying he was trying to stay focused on his locker room and staff and to think about basketball. He also said later that he worried privately that early hotel checkout times could hurt his staff’s ability to help the team properly, adding, “But what if the masseuse decides that she doesn’t want to do a good job because she’s angry, and then she doesn’t do a good job on Deni? Then it affects me, too.”
For Portland, the next test is whether the stability Avdija sees in Splitter can hold while the larger questions around the franchise keep circling. The on-court results have already given the interim coach an argument few expected in October.
