Bad blood between Raymond Felton and Portland Trail Blazers fans boiled over on Thursday night when the Knicks came to town. Damian Lillard outscored Felton 26-11 and out-dished him 10-3 as the Trail Blazers pulled away for a 105-90 win, but Felton still thinks he got the last laugh.
Raymond Felton booed mercilessly in return to Portland
Raymond Felton’s return to Portland was far from triumphant, but he still came away smiling and laughing after the game. Apparently there is no shame in Felton’s game.
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Felton was terrible during his time in Portland last season -- which was a terrible season for the team -- and the fans weren’t shy about booing the veteran point guard at every turn during the game. Ben Golliver of Blazer’s Edge captured the mood well:
To see grown men chant "Do-Nuts! Do-Nuts" in public and giggle like children is a most unusual and interesting phenomenon. To hear the boos continue, not relenting in the slightest, was surprising, even for those braced to expect a rough reception. Felton's play Thursday encouraged this, too. He shot 4-for-12, badly bricking a number of jumpers, to finish with 11 points, three assists and two turnovers. He wound up only 39 points short of the 50 he had promised to "drop on 'em" last summer, leaving "those bloggers and those people who write" to make a chart to compare his puffy-chested proclamation to the relatively puny final output.
Fans found agreement in their disdain for Felton, and everyone at the Rose Garden seemed to enjoy tossing jeers in Raymond’s direction. The Trail Blazers made it easy to get into the taunts, because they put together a 56-32 run in the second and third periods to create a comfortable cushion on the scoreboard.
Clearly Felton failed to back up his trash talk on Thursday night, so why was he laughing? He says he liked hearing the boos (via Blazer’s Edge):
“It was what I expected,” Felton said of the crowd reaction. “Some boos. Boos the whole time actually. It made me laugh.”
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“Oh yeah, it was loud,” Felton said, when asked if he could hear the boos while he played. “Of course. Definitely, I definitely could hear that. Like I said, it made me smile.”
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“When you get booed, how else are you supposed to respond to that?”, Felton told Blazers Edge. “You can’t get angry. You can’t do anything, all you can do is smile and laugh, that’s all you can do.”
Apparently there is no shame in Raymond Felton's game, even when his game gets a bit shameful.
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