PORTLAND — It started at shootaround.
In the morning hours before the Trail Blazers would walk onto the Rose Garden court, players gathered at the practice facility and stood ashamed.
The team defense wasn’t very good. In fact — judging by some defensive statistics — the Blazer defense was worst in the league.
Coach Terry Stotts called them out. He showed the numbers, and though players confessed to feeling humiliated in the morning, by Friday evening, they had grown inspired.
The Blazers shut down the Minnesota Timberwolves, 103-95, before turning the lights off in the locker room for a while.