Despite the Pelicans missing half their frontcourt tandem and the Blazers getting off to an uncharacteristically good start, defensive failures cost Portland another home victory.
The Blazers started off so, so well.
With the mid-day announcement that Anthony Davis would miss tonight’s matchup, the odds were instantly weighted in Portland’s favor.
Right from the tip, the home team looked ready to play in the second game wearing their red-and-black Statement jerseys.
The hot start we’ve been waiting for
Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic began working their magic in the pick and roll on the very first play. A Nurk layup, then a two-handed dunk, followed by a three from Dame.
Then CJ McCollum ran the perimeter and dished to Pat Connaughton for a corner three. Noah Vonleh shocked the world by drawing the and-one on Boogie with not a dunk… but a drive to the rim! He even followed it with an athletic turnaround block on the other end.
Not to be left out of Portland’s momentum, Lillard chipped in back to back threes, giving the home team a lead of 31-17 with two minutes left in the first quarter.
The Pelicans would close the gap to 33-26, but with Dame scoring 13 points on 5/6 FG with three of his buckets from deep, the Blazers seemed to have their opponent already on the ropes.
Then, when Ed Davis exited the game after having played a productive eight minutes, a light seemed to dawn on DeMarcus Cousins.
He was the only veteran big man in the game! And that gave him control.
A LOT of control.
Halfway through the second quarter, Cousins used some “veteran moves” to draw fouls from Nurkic. Or, “tricked the refs into calling fouls by pulling Nurkic onto himself,” whatever way you want to put it.
And just like that, Cousins changed the game on back to back plays. Nurk went from having a solid first half, to having three fouls and sitting on the bench until late in the game.
Enter Meyers Leonard
This next chapter of the game looked, once again, so, so good at first.
The Blazers’ lead had been cut to 43-41 as Meyers Leonard entered the game. With just under five minutes left, Dame hit him with the pocket pass for an easy bucket in the paint.
In. The. PAINT. I just wanted to be clear about Leonard’s first action.
On the other end, the Pelicans went straight to Boogie. Meyers guarded him, and without fouling. Portland pushed back down the floor and Leonard set a high screen for Dame for pick and pop, got the ball back, and nailed a three in rhythm!
The Blazers’ defense kept the heat on, deflecting a pass to Cousins in the post. Then Leonard faked a three, took two dribbles to the elbow and canned the jumper.
Meyers even followed his diverse shooting by expanding his offense, and giving up a good shot for a great one. Receiving the ball at the top of the arc and seeing the defense shift, he dished left to Connaughton for an open three.
But it seemed that the performance was too dazzling for Leonard’s teammates. As the first half closed, Portland’s defense evaporated. Every player seemed a step behind, or just not communicating properly.
With eight seconds to go and after being down by as many as 14 points, New Orleans took the lead 60-57.
Second Half
The Blazers certainly kept it interesting. With the third quarter starting out with Nurkic pulling off a “nutmeg” pass to Connaughton for an easy layup, you might have missed the Pelicans’ hot shooting and Portland’s deficit stretching to 10 points.
After Lillard and Leonard ran a pick and roll, resulting in Meyers getting a thunderous hammer dunk, I wouldn’t blame you if you forgot that New Orleans was shooting 59% from deep.
To be clear, that is NOT usually a strength of theirs.
And when Leonard came down hard on Cousins, with the intentional foul to stop a shot attempt, you might not have remembered that it was a play on the ball. Or, that DeMarcus Cousins travelled before the foul. Or, that Meyers made contact with the ball first, and Cousins’ arm second.
You may have not remembered that he never made contact with Boogie’s face or head, or did anything that could be deemed “excessive” or “not part of the game”.
All because DeMarcus Cousins threw his head back like he’d been sucker punched. And even after review, the officials, who had initially called a common foul, declared Leonard’s actions warranted a Flagrant 1… AND a technical foul.
This, in turn, sent Coach Stotts into a blind rage. So, the Pelicans received an extra free throw for another technical foul.
…and a slow defeat.
At that point, Portland’s deficit was 19, trailing 77-96. You may as well have ended the game right there. The Blazers just couldn’t manage to muster the defense that they’ve gained a reputation for this season. The Pelicans were getting to the line with impunity through Cousins, and Portland didn’t have an answer.
But just for fun, let’s look at one more play before we wrap up.
On the next play, Meyers drove to the basket and got raked across the face by Jameer Nelson.
Leonard threw the ball over his shoulder as he grabbed his face, and miraculously the shot fell! The foul was called, and the bucket counted. Nelson was assessed a Flagrant 1 (for doing worse than what Leonard did earlier), and Meyers made his free throw.
After that, despite hustle and effort from Lillard, Leonard, Shabazz Napier, and Al-Farouq Aminu, Portland never quite looked like they were competing to win this game.
They even made their patented late run to end the game, and briefly closed the deficit to five points. But with Shabazz bobbling a layup after a steal, the Blazers were forced to foul the Pelicans with 7.4 seconds to play, and trailed by seven points instead of potentially three.
New Orleans left Portland victorious, 123-116.
Crunching the numbers
Portland scored 33 and 34 points in the first and fourth quarters, respectively, but were outscored 72-49 in the second and third.
Inconsistent energy and effort, combined with unnecessary (and/or some unwarranted) fouls on the Blazers’ big men, added up to a greater burden than the bench’s 20-point advantage could overcome.
As mentioned before, the Pelicans shot 15-31 from deep, while the Blazers tallied 11-35. For a team with the Blazers’ shooters, and ranked as highly on Opponent three-point percentage, that differential should have been in Portland’s favor, and STRONGLY.
Portland led in turnovers (5-11), and had very similar stats as New Orleans in rebounds, assists, and points in the paint. Besides losing in fast break points (big surprise) and three-pointers made (somewhat cancelled out by the Blazers’ bench domination), the only thing left was free throws.
The Blazers made all 11 of their free throw attempts. The Pelicans made 18. Of their 25 trips to the foul line.
That led to a seven point deficit in what was a seven point loss.
Three Takeaways
1) Meyers played a great game with the spotlights on him. After the poor performance last game (as well as the poor treatment by Blazer fans) and given what we’ve seen with his self-confidence troubles, this appeared to be a big step in the right direction.
If only he could face off against Cousins every night.
Also, I think we need to start a campaign to make Leonard keep the mutton chops and ‘stache. It was working for him tonight.
2) Nurkic MUST learn to control his fouling. His skillset gives the Blazers such an extra dimension on offense, but he is severely limited by his ability to stay on the floor.
If the NBA is trending towards small-ball, then Jusuf has to face that there will always be segments of games (some more than others) where he simply won’t be as useful. The weight loss helps, but without greater foot speed, he’ll have to accept being left behind in certain situations.
The key, then, is for him to maximize his usefulness when the Blazers are not facing a small ball lineup. To do that, Nurk needs to be able to properly defend big men.
Nurkic’s limitations defending “true” centers will strongly correlate with his ceiling, and possibly his value when he’s looking to negotiate his contract this offseason.
Next: How to jump-start the Blazers' season
3) And yet, Nurk is wise. Per Casey Holdahl of trailblazers.com, Nurkic was quoted postgame as saying, “Maybe we think we good enough to kind of mess around, and life come hard at you. So when you figure out you’re not that good, you can’t turn any time you want. You need to play 48 minutes to win the game and obviously we didn’t tonight.”
Honestly, this is the key. The Blazers haven’t proven that can play with hunger and intensity for 48 minutes. But again, Jusuf, buddy… you gotta be able to stay on the floor.
Next Game
The Blazers play the Washington Wizards next Tuesday, Dec. 5th at 7pm Pacific in Portland. The game will be broadcast on NBCSNW and NBA TV, and can be listened to on Rip City Radio 620.