{"id":564469,"date":"2026-11-14T20:20:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T19:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=564469"},"modified":"2026-11-14T20:20:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T19:20:30","slug":"deni-avdija-is-making-life-easier-for-dame-lillard-in-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/deni-avdija-is-making-life-easier-for-dame-lillard-in-portland\/","title":{"rendered":"Deni Avdija is making life easier for Dame Lillard in Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Portland\u2019s impressive start to the regular season has gone somewhat under the radar. The Trail Blazers have won nine of their first 12 games despite having a first-time head coach and dealing with a string of injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Against the Kings, the duo of Dame Lillard and Deni Avdija combined for more than half of Portland\u2019s 120 points in a road win at the Golden 1 Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Avdija\u2019s continued offensive development &#8211; <em>The Israeli forward is producing 23.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 6.3 assist per game, shooting 50% from the field and 35% from long range-<\/em> is allowing Lillard to pick his spots and be more selective about when to take over games. That\u2019s no small advantage for a player who has spent most of his career as his team\u2019s primary offensive option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe\u2019s been great,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/4-takeaways-blazers-kings-nov-13-2026\">Lillard said of Avdija.<\/a> \u201cPlaying with him has been probably the most joyful for me out of any other player that I\u2019ve played with, as far as being a tandem. Just because of the force that he plays with, it makes the game easier for me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEspecially coming back after missing some time, the trust that\u2019s there based off of what I\u2019ve seen from him last year, and now being on the floor with him, it\u2019s at an extremely high level. Knowing that he can dominate games, he can make plays and make the game easier for me, and I can do the same for him. It\u2019s been great just to have a guy that I can play alongside that you trust on that level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">DENI AND DAME COMBINED FOR 63 POINTS IN PORTLAND&#39;S WEST GROUP C WIN!<br><br>DENI: 34 PTS, 6 REB, 4 AST, 3 3PM<br>DAME: 29 PTS, 6 AST, 6 3PM<br><br>The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/trailblazers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@trailblazers<\/a> have won 3 straight and are now 9-3 on the season \ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ekNalJHIRo\">pic.twitter.com\/ekNalJHIRo<\/a><\/p>&mdash; NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBA\/status\/2121484881234457032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 14, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trail Blazers have won nine of their first 12 games<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":564465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[187],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-564469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","typology-video"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/11\/deni-avdija-trail-blazers.png","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564471,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564469\/revisions\/564471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564469"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=564469"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=564469"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=564469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}