NBA: 5 players who have stepped up through the first weekend of the restart
Gary Trent, Jr., Portland Trail Blazers
On a team with Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum, and Carmelo Anthony, it’s easy to get overlooked in the scoring category but Gary Trent Jr. is an under-the-radar dynamic 3-point shooter that showed out this weekend.
In Friday’s win over Memphis, Trent logged 17 points on 5-8 shooting and 4-5 from 3 and followed up in Sunday’s loss to Boston with 21 points on 7-11 shooting from downtown in 34 minutes of action off the bench.
Being one of Portland’s key bench scoring pieces all season, Trent was able to take some pressure off his stars and provide much-needed buckets including a late fourth quarter 3 against Boston to tie the game, although Portland wouldn’t be able to pull it out in the end.
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Depth all-around is what’s going to win you a championship this season, and a fully healthy Portland team led by the second tier of Trent and Hassan Whiteside could be dangerous if they can pick up the pace and knock Memphis off the eighth seed.