Trail Blazers Weekly Review
So far there have been three very memorable Blazer games. 1) Blazers destroy the Cavaliers. 2) Lillard-Time destroys the Thunder. 3) Blazers sucker punch Golden State.
Go ahead and rank those games in whatever order you like, but even with such an important victory against the Jazz on Sunday, everyone is still abuzz about the beat down Portland put on the champs.
Blazers 137 vs. Warriors 105
Why did we win?
Besides Damian Lillard cementing himself in Blazers’ history with 51 points against the MVP, the third quarter of this game was the best we’ve played all season. Think about it, with the defending champs cutting a big deficit to six and bringing all the momentum with them into halftime, Portland came out and forced the league’s best offense into 13 turnovers for just 17 total points in the quarter. Then it was all Lillard afterwards, going bonkers in the fourth quarter with shots from the rafters.
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Improvements?
If we play like that every night, we can beat anyone. Yeah they were flat and obviously didn’t play their best game, but we all saw the heart and frustration on every Warrior’s face as the game slipped away. Stephen Curry had no answer for Lillard, the Warriors had no answer for Rip City; it was simply a beat down.
What did we learn?
Not only did he silence all the haters who didn’t vote him to the All-Star game, and not only did he play like this against the MVP, but this game cemented Lillard as one of the best Blazers ever. He’s made a bunch of scrappy youngsters believe in themselves, forget about LaMarcus Aldridge, and most importantly: put team in front of individual. Even after Rip City had its most exciting team of the last 15 years, the Aldridge led Blazers never reached this level of cohesiveness and unselfishness.
And that’s because of Lillard, no question.
Blazers 115 vs. Jazz 111
Why did we win?
When Allen Crabbe and Gerald Henderson weren’t having their usual bench production nights, leave it to Maurice Harkless to provide the necessary energy with important rebounds and tip-ins down the stretch. He came in as a stretch four and outworked the lanky front court of the Jazz for some amazing offensive rebounds, leading Portland to an astounding +11 offensive rebounds.
Improvements?
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Our percentage from the charity stripe was awful. We brought it back to 65.8% total for the game, but there was a point when Portland was hovering around 40%. I mean Lillard has struggled enough to lose the responsibility of knocking down technical foul shots. But our biggest improvement needs to be offense from Al-Farouq Aminu. Six boards and three assists are nice, but Chief, you gotta score more than two points, especially in a game as important as this one was.
What did we learn?
Lillard pulled us back into it with three after three, this was a team win. Harkless and Mason Plumlee showed incredible athleticism and toughness to pull down important rebounds in crunch time. Those hustle stats are just as/if not even more important than the scoring from Lillard and C.J. McCollum.
To the NBA, ESPN, and every other mass media provider, keep overlooking Portland and add fuel to the fire that’s 14-3 since the OKC game.