If there’s one word to describe the Portland Trail Blazers’ opener to the 2025-26 season against the Minnesota Timberwolves, it’s “hard”. Portland played hard, fought hard, and charged hard down the floor all night. The ending to the game was also hard. Nursing a narrow lead for most of four quarters, the Blazers watched Minnesota out-shoot them in the final period, leading to a 118-114 ‘Wolves victory. Portland got almost everything they wanted. They only missed the result on the scoreboard. Unfortunately, that’s the one thing that counts in the long run.

Here are all the things we noticed from opening night.

Portland’s New M.O.

The Blazers showed what is likely to become their standard mode of operating within the first two minutes of this game. They played at a breakneck pace, swarmi

See Full Page