Portland tramples Bulls

Former UNR star Luke Babbitt scored 22 points to help Portland roll to an 83-69 win over Chicago on Sunday at the NBA Vegas Summer League at Cox Pavilion.
Patrick Mills added 18 points and Armon Johnson another former UNR standout, had 12 points and six assists in the win.
Morris Almond scored 22 points for the Bulls in the loss.
Over at the Thomas & Mack Center, Jordan Crawford and Jeff Teague each scored 15 points to help the Hawks to an 89-83 win over Minnesota.
Lazar Hayward paced the Timberwolves with 19 points and Wayne Ellington added 18 in the loss, but Minnesota got just 14 points from its bench.

Who to hate more?

With the games being played on campus at UNLV, there is bound to be some Rebel fans in attendance at the summer league.
They probably had a difficult time deciding who to root for in the Portland-Chicago game.
Or better yet, who to root against.
Portland features a pair of UNR players, Luke Babbitt and Armon Johnson, in its starting lineup.
The Trail Blazers have been easy to root against.
Chcago starting center Trent Plaisted is a BYU alum.
It’s tough to say which school is more hated by UNLV fans.
The tiebreaker may be former UNLV coach Bill Bayno is coaching Portland. Then again, with the way his tenure ended, it might be tough to determine which way the tiebreaker swings.

Spurs unofficial champs with raptors

San Antonio improved to 5-0 with its victory in the first game at the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Spurs wrap up summer league competition with a perfect 5-0 record, equaling the mark of Toronto.
The Lakers and Hornets wrapped up play with 0-5 records. The D-League Stars team has one more chance to pick up its first win in the final game of the event at the Mack tonight.
Milwaukee won this morning to avoid joining the group of winless teams.

Emptying out

The energy has been sapped from the building on the final day of summer league.
The crowd is significantly smaller than it has been throughout the week.
Even more noticeably, the energy level is down. The fans have actually been very into the games throughout the event, but it doesn’t seem to be the case today.
Perhaps many of them are all summer leagued out.
I can’t imagine why. There’s only been 56 games played so far over the last 10 days.