Deni Avdija said Spurs have same flaw as Trail Blazers after 41-point game

Call me old-fashioned, I don't care. If you put your team on your back to win in a playoff-caliber environment, you can feel free to essentially say whatever you want after the fact. You will still probably have to deal with the consequences later, but that's a bridge to cross for another day.

After dropping 41 points for the Portland Trail Blazers in their epic play-in win over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, Portland star Deni Avdija was feeling himself and his team. The postgame Amazon panel asked Avdija for his initial thoughts on the San Antonio Spurs, who are the Western Conference's No. 2 playoff seed and now await the No. 7-seeded Trail Blazers in a first-round matchup.

Avdija didn't mince his words. He gave San Antonio credit for its incredible 62-win renaissance season, of course. But then he pointed out that the Spurs and Trail Blazers might share the same core flaw: neither of these young teams has ever been on this playoff stage before.

Oh, right. That makes it impossible for anyone to predict how both squads will react while playing under brighter lights:

We talk so much about how experience matters this time of year in the NBA. Almost always, no one makes a deep playoff run until they've gone through the postseason wringer at least once. Even the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder endured a gut-punch of a second-round playoff loss in their first go-around together before winning it all the following season. They had to.

But what happens when neither team in a series has ever been here before? Oh, the drama.

On paper, the Spurs are much more talented than the Trail Blazers, and they have one of the NBA's best players in Victor Wembanyama. They might get a mild scare from Portland, but otherwise, I expect them to cruise. That isn't an outright certainty, though. Until we see how the inexperienced Spurs react on a bigger stage, there might be enough benefit of the doubt for the underdog and similarly inexperienced Trail Blazers to give them more of a run for their money than anyone thinks.

Avdija makes a great point about Spurs-Trail Blazers. Let's see if he can put his money where his mouth is.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Deni Avdija said Trail Blazers aren't afraid of Spurs for 1 good reason