Blazers 86’d by 76ers, 101-81

We’ve been led to believe that the Portland Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team.

If tonight was any indication, we’ve all been fooled.

The Blazers came out of the gate flatter than a Minnesota stingray, allowing the Philadelphia 76ers rights of first refusal on their home floor.

Jusuf Nurkic threw up bad passes (en route to 6 turnovers) and bad shots, outclasses and out social-media’d by Joel Embiid.

By the time Dario “Looks Like a Swashbuckling Pirate” Saric canned a three with eight minutes left in the first, the Blazers were staring down a 10-0 hole.

Then the Blazers kept digging. And digging… and digging.

The first quarter was 60% over by the time the Blazers scored their first bucket, breaking a 16-0 76ers run.

Heading into the second quarter, the Blazers were down 26-14, but at least they were scoring. But it felt empty. It was like coming home for dinner, realizing you have no food, then scraping the bottom of a bag of chips for those last salt-crusted crumbs. Sure, they taste okay, but you still feel ashamed of yourself and have brought dishonor to your existence.

The Blazers were able to cut the 76ers lead to eight, but the Blazers found themselves down 50-37 at the half.

2nd Half

We’d like to say this is where it turned around. That CJ McCollum finally started hitting shots. That Coach Stotts gave a firey, impassioned speech with his eyes reduced to slits, spit flying from his mouth, veins on his neck popping to full “dude on steroid at the gym” proportions.

But, nope.

Even when the Blazers got a few stops and a few buckets, the game felt both within reach and weirdly hopeless. Portland’s energy was sallow, their passes sloppy, and their desire to win lacking.

Heading into the fourth down 57-70, you’d be excused for maybe thinking, “they can turn it on. They can flip the switch.”

But the Golden State Warriors these Blazers are not.

Even with the lead cut to single digits with 10 minutes left, the 76ers answered with a quick five points of their own. Damian Lillard tried to draw fouls, but was unsuccessful, as he shared after the game:

The Blazers were done. Defeated. Cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey, only WAYYY less delicious.

The game ended with Portland your 101-81 losers.

Three Takeaways:

1) The Blazers CANNOT afford slow starts. As we wrote earlier, they’re not the Warriors. Good teams can get away with that. The Blazers don’t have the horses to run that race, and they shouldn’t try. We don’t have anything to suggest that the Blazers accepted their slow start… we just don’t want them to get used to it.

2) Portland needs more from their small forwards. Moe Harkless (0-3 with no points or rebounds in 18 minutes) has had a REALLY tough start to the season, but it wasn’t just him. Evan Turner was 2-7 for four points in 27 minutes, which, combined, gives you about a games-worth of nearly useless small forward minutes. No, the Blazers’ starters didn’t have great outings either, but four points in 46 total minutes is tough to defend.

Next: The Western Conference is tough. Where do the Blazers stack up?

3) CJ McCollum had his worst game ever as a starter. No, really, he did, and you can see for yourself, thanks to basketball-reference.com. CJ has only scored five or fewer points ONCE as a starter before tonight, and at least in that game he was 2-8 with four dimes. Tonight, McCollum was an eye-gauging 1-14 with no assists, no steals, and 3 turnovers. Yes, he had five boards, but still. At least we know he’ll do better next game. Speaking of…

Next Game:

The Blazers head to fake Portland (Brooklyn) to take on the Nets on Sat. Nov. 24 at 9am Pacific.