Portland Trail Blazers: Takeaways from preseason Game 1 vs Warriors

Chauncey Billups may need to pull the reins back on Nassir Little just a bit

An overreaction here would be: “Nassir Little isn’t ready,” but that’s simply not true.

What is true, though, was that Little looked both nervous and antsy last night.

The young gun took nine shots in just 24 minutes. The aggressiveness was a positive. The lack of patience on those shots was not.

Nas has been physically NBA-ready since he entered the league, but his IQ has been lacking. On defense, though, he was one of the few Blazers that showed some positives on that end of the court.

On offense, his greenness was apparent. Little got to the rim with ease on four different occasions against the Dubs, but didn’t have the control or finesse to finish off those plays.

Here, he blows by Juan Toscano-Anderson but fails to convert at the rim.

On this particular play, it was probably nerves that cost him an easy two points. On the other attempts, it was a lack of floor awareness that led to highly contested shots when another move or an extra pass could have led to a bucket.

In preseason, Little should take every opportunity to be aggressive. Until his mind catches up with his body though, he might be best off serving as a defensive wing and complementary scorer in the regular season.