The Portland Trail Blazers’ late game comeback fell short in a tough game against a division rival Oklahoma City Thunder tonight.
The Portland Trail Blazers came out on fire tonight. They were clicking on all cylinders and their offense looked effortless for most of the first half. They were moving the ball very well which is often uncharacteristic of this offense.
They actually had a season high for assists in a half tonight with 18 first half assists. Damian Lillard and Evan Turner accounted for most of these first half assists as both were seeing the floor well and setting up easy buckets for their teammates.
Lillard came out hot scoring and making good decisions in the pick and roll with Jusuf Nurkic. The pick and roll was really opening up some easy looks for Nurkic and got him off to a hot start as well. Nurk started out 8-9 from the field in the first half scoring 16 points.
Not only did the starting 5 have it going, but the Blazers bench clearly outplayed the Thunder’s bench in the first half. Jake Layman came in ready to go shooting with confidence scoring on his first three possessions all off of Evan Turner assists.
As mentioned earlier, Turner was seeing the floor very well in the first half, with 6 assists in the second quarter alone. Turner’s excellent court vision was a big part of the Blazers’ bench success early in this one tonight.
The bench has really struggled at times this year and has been a big complaint of late, so it was a pleasant surprise for Portland’s bench to outplay a Thunder bench which is led by a sixth man of the year candidate Dennis Schroder.
All of this added up to a very impressive first half for the Blazers, especially considering the Thunder are the leagues number one defense.
As effortless as the Blazers’ offense looked in the first half, the Thunder’s offense looked equally as effortless at times. Paul George opened up the game with 22 first half points, but outside of PG I think the Blazers did a decent job defensively in the first half holding the Thunder to 40% from the field while shooting 52% on their end.
Now as positive as the first half sounded, their 5-point halftime lead quickly turned into a 6-point deficit going into 4th quarter. It really was a tale of two halves in this one.
As good as the offense looked in the first half, it really stalled in the second half. They still managed a season high 30 assists in this one, but it is really depressing to see the ball movement Blazers fans have been looking for all season in the first half only to see them revert to their usual stand and watch no ball movement offense in the second half.
This might have had a little bit to do with the Thunder making halftime adjustments and getting back to their pesky, hard-nosed defense in the second half, but I still would’ve liked to see them build on the first half rather than reverting to their old ways.
CJ McCollum also continued his recent inconsistencies tonight with another rough shooting night. I was hoping for him to snap out of it in the 4th quarter and knock down some big shots, but it didn’t happen. McCollum has to step up in close games.
There were a few positive notes even in a loss though. Layman looked very good tonight with 11 points on 5-7 shooting. Maurice Harkless looks at times like he could be a difference maker on the defensive end and finished the game with 3 blocks and 1 steal. As I previously mentioned, the first half offense looked really good. Hopefully they will watch film on the game and try to build off the first half of play from tonight. It would be great if they could implement that type of ball movement moving forward.