Despite Damian Lillard‘s best efforts, the Blazers fell short of upsetting the Warriors and extended their losing streak to five games.
Another hot start for Portland may have led Blazers fans to some false hope.
Coupled with Golden State missing three of their starters, Portland fans wouldn’t have felt too foolish if they let themselves believe that Dame was going to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat at the start of another five-game road trip.
Alas, it was not to be.
The Blazers started out looking confident, matching the Warriors shot-for-shot and playing active team defense. CJ McCollum even blocked Kevin Durant from behind, followed shortly after by Evan Turner intercepting a lazy pass for a fast break.
While the interior defense came off fairly sloppy from both teams, Portland took an early lead at 16-12 with 10 points in the paint. Then, after missing his first three attempts from deep, Lillard nailed two in a row to maintain the Blazer lead.
The first quarter closed with a Portland lead of 28-27, but there was evidence of trouble that would end up sinking their efforts; the Blazer bench had only scored two points.
Bad signs began to pile up in the second quarter as the Warriors took over. Outside of Dame’s heroics, no other Blazer seemed able to find their rhythm on offense.
As Durant swatted CJ’s floater to end the half, the Blazers trailed by 12, at 47-59. Portland was shooting 40.5% from the field, trailing Golden State at 59.5%.
Portland only had half as many threes made as the Warriors, and less than half the assists.
Most telling of all, Portland’s bench had tallied a mere four points, as the Warriors’ bench had contributed 24.
Second Half
Lillard did his best to light a fire under his team, but couldn’t seem to find the ignition. CJ nailed his first attempt from deep, but they couldn’t stop the Warriors from answering on the other end.
At the end of the third quarter, Portland trailed 75-93. The Blazers reserves had still posted only eight points, compared to 27 from the Bay Area bench.
Halfway through the fourth quarter, Damian continued to keep Portland barely within striking distance with a big hammer dunk followed by a layup and a foul on Andre Iguodala, cutting the deficit to eight at 93-101.
Klay Thompson hit a three but Pat Connaughton answered back. The lead was still single digits, and there was still time…
But as Lillard bounced off of Jordan Bell, falling to the ground as he drove for the layup, there was no whistle.
Even after Bell’s arm came down across Damian’s forearm, the refs didn’t take notice.
And while Lillard hit the ground and Connaughton fell over him out of bounds, the Warriors quickly pass down the floor for a corner three from Klay Thompson.
It could have been as close as a six-point game, still with several minutes to play.
Instead, the Warriors lead was back to double digits, and the gap would be too much for the Blazers to overcome.
It wasn’t the whole game, but the lack of a whistle on an obvious foul undeniably affected the Blazers’ push to close the deficit.
It’s unfortunate that video review couldn’t help the officials correct that missed call. The Blazers haven’t had a five-game losing streak since drafting Lillard, and he really did earn them a chance to at least make it a closer finish. As it stood, Portland fell to the Warriors 104-111.
Three Takeaways:
1) Blazers have competed well against top teams. That bodes well as the schedule gets harder, but we still haven’t shown an ability to play well for 48 minutes at a time. More development will be needed if Portland hopes to make the post-season. That development can’t wait too long to start showing up.
2) Lillard cannot get any love from the refs. The refs refuse to call fouls for Dame on his drives. He earns considerably more free throws than he gets each game, and it just seems to go unnoticed. This has been an issue long enough that it can no longer be credited simply to fan bias, but any legitimate explanation is still a mystery.
Next: Who should become the Portland Trail Blazers’ sixth man?
3) Zach Collins continues to earn minutes with solid fundamental play. Two games in a row now, Collins has shown to be an active rebounder and fearless defender. Perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t seem quite as prone to fouling as most rookie bigs. Collins led all bench scorers with nine points (a career high). He fouled out on a (questionable) call on a screen, but played valuable minutes tonight.
Next Game:
The Blazers continue their road trip in Miami to face the Heat on Wed. Dec. 13 at 4:30pm Pacific.