Kyrie Irving buries Trail Blazers with a career-high 55 points

Going through their most trying and deflating stretch of the season, the Portland Trail Blazers visited the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had been on a 7-game streak, but were without star forward LeBron James. “No matter,” said Cavs guard Kyrie Irving, who went off for a career-high 55 points and hit the go-ahead three to seal it, and the Blazers fell 99-94.

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Recap

The Blazers fell behind early as Kevin Love got 10 very fast points. As it turned out, those would be the ONLY points he’d score all game, but it sure didn’t seem that way at the time. Meanwhile, Irving missed his first seven shots in a dazzling display of anti-foreshadowing. The Blazers fell behind by as many as 12, and trailed at the end of the first quarter, 31-21.

As Portland continued sliding, LaMarcus Aldridge did everything in his power to keep his team afloat. The Cavs were shooting 10-20 from deep, the Blazers just 2-11. Aldridge had 16 points, but Cleveland’s Irving had 28 points as he forgot his cold start quicker than ice melts in a toaster. Cavs led at the half 54-44.

Knowing that the “fall behind early, come back late” shtick was wearing a little thin, the Blazers went on a run behind Aldridge in the third and cut it to 61-57 with eight minutes to go, then trimmed it to as little as three. The storyline was the same: Aldridge was carrying his team, and Kyrie was still hitting shots– both open and contested. The Cavs tried switching newly-acquired center Timofey Mozgov onto Aldridge with limited success. Aldridge hit a shot to close the quarter, and the Blazers found themselves down just 79-74 after three.

In the fourth, the Cavs had almost nothing outside of Irving, but Irving on fire is a pretty nice one-trick pony. Meyers Leonard picked things up for Portland, taking shots to the face, boxing out, and hitting shots to earn his keep, and the Blazers drew to 84-85 with six minutes to go in the game… then a Matthews three pushed them over the hump.

Up by three points with two minutes and the ball, Portland had multiple opportunities to stretch the lead. Puzzlingly, the man who took shots on consecutive possessions was not Aldridge, who was both making shots and drawing fouls, but Matthews. In my view, the failure to feed Aldridge at this crucial juncture was the fatal mistake, if any one mistake could be considered game breaking.

Meanwhile, Irving hit a pair of free throws and a three. A pair of Mozgov free throws put the Cavs up two. Aldridge returned the favor, and it was all tied up with 27 seconds left to play.

After hitting 10 threes in the game to this point, Irving took advantage of space allowed by Nicolas Batum to sink his 11th. The Blazers failed to respond on an inbound play in which Lillard scrambled to the corner for a desperation heave. Ballgame: Cavs. After some garbage free throws the final score was 99-94.

Players

Legend is that the world was built upon LaMarcus Aldridge‘s back. That’s how steady, stable, and binding he is. . Aldridge’s line was impressive: 38 points, 11 boards, two blocks, two assists, and a steal… but even more impressive is how many times he bailed the team out of a bad possession, how heavily he was leaned on as Lillard, Matthews, and Batum struggled to score. Since suffering a torn ligament in his thumb, Aldridge is averaging 32 points and 10 rebounds per game.

Damian Lillard had an unfortunate game, another in a run of bad games for him after being white-hot just a few weeks ago. He was 4-19 from the field, the worst he’s ever shot with 17 or more field goal attempts. Not just this year, in his career. He also had zero rebounds and just 5 assists. He hasn’t cracked 40% shooting in his last six games.

Wesley Matthews also had a bad night, getting just two boards and two assists to supplement his 11 points. He missed a handful of wide open threes, but he wasn’t the only one: The Blazers were 10-31 from deep, while the Cavs were 15-37.

Nicolas Batum played better to my eye than a lot of the criticism I saw online. He was active and engaged, getting seven points, seven assists and a mind-blowing zero turnovers along with two steals, one block, and four boards. He didn’t shoot well, but I saw a guy trying his hardest. He didn’t look checked out. I’d be curious to see what he would have looked like with 100% health.

Speaking of health, grizzled veteran of a half-dozen World Wars Chris Kaman is a walking medicine bag. Bum leg? Check. Crappy hand? Check. Painful-looking steel wool beard? Oh, that’s a check. Kaman had a team-high 13 rebounds and took a muted five shots, hitting three of them for seven points. There wasn’t a ton he could do against Mozgov besides stay in front, but really, what more do you expect?

Meyers Leonard gets a hat-tip. He’s really, truly getting better. He only had nine points and two boards, but he played physically and held his own. He created space for his teammates. He refused to bite on a couple of drives and pump fakes. If he keeps this up, he may cement a definitive “he will play every game for X minutes” role off the bench like Steve Blake and Kaman have.

Notes

• The Blazers have now lost six of their last eight. Ouch. Mama said there’d be days like this, but she didn’t say a damn thing about weeks.

• For every game that passes, Robin Lopez and Joel Freeland are a game closer to returning, though neither seem ready to pop off the pine just yet. We’re all rubbing our hands in anticipation.

• The Cavs outrebounded the Blazers 46-39. That’s not too bad. However, the Blazers allowed them to take 37 threes and hit 15, and 11 of those came from Irving. The Blazers defense is understandably shaky with all the injuries to players both sitting out and suiting up, but you can’t allow that many long looks and expect everything to be okay.

The Blazers pack their bags and head to Atlanta to face the Hawks, winners of a Matrix-crashing 17 straight games, on Friday, January 30th at 4:30 p.m. PST.

Next: Trail Blazers defense of Kyrie Irving: What went wrong