Following a bad loss against one of the NBA’s worst teams, the Portland Trail Blazers have some serious reflecting to do before they hit rock bottom.
The Portland Trail Blazers are officially in uncharted territory. At 5-12, this is the worst start to a season they’ve had since 2007. They have also not missed the playoffs since Damian Lillard‘s rookie season, but that now looks like a distinct possibility.
In what was meant to be an exciting game where Dame and Carmelo Anthony celebrate a win in their first game together, Portland got trounced by the Cavaliers 104-110. The worst part is, Cleveland didn’t even need their best player in Kevin Love available to do it. Yet another disappointing loss brings even more lessons to learn from.
Here are three important things we learned from Saturday night in Cleveland.
Dame shouldn’t play through injury
For all who watched last night’s game, Damian Lillard clearly looked a shadow of his normal self. After missing the last two games (both losses) due to back spasms, Lillard was a game-time decision to see if he felt good enough to play during warmups. Although he opted in to the game, he seemed timid to attack the basket and repeatedly walked up and down the court instead of pushing it in transition.
It’s understandable that Dame would feel some pressure to not miss any games with how the Blazers’ season has gone thus far, but pushing it would be a big mistake. Through three quarters of play, Lillard only mustered 7 points. In the final quarter, Dame took it upon himself to carry the offense and scored 16. That’s great and all, but also very risky.
If Lillard isn’t healthy, he shouldn’t play. If an injured Dame couldn’t even help this team beat the lowly Cavaliers, what’s to be gained from such a gamble? All I see is a lot to lose, as Lillard could risk hurting himself further and ending up riding the bench in a suit next to his pals Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins.
Portland is awful in the paint… and on the perimeter
Despite being middle of the pack in both offensive and defensive rebounding stats, the Trail Blazers are clearly deficient down low on the block. No amount of Hassan Whiteside stat-padding could change that. Portland has coughed up a league-worst 16.8 second chance points per game. Cleveland is also an average rebounding team, yet they killed the Blazers on the boards, grabbing 65 rebounds to Portland’s 42.
But things didn’t look much better on the perimeter either. The Blazers don’t have a single guard on the roster who can defend at a plus level, and it shows. While Lillard actually did a great job playing defense on Darius Garland, the same can not be said for Anfernee Simons. Allowing Jordan Clarkson to light you up for 28 points (and shooting 6-for-6 from deep) is just unacceptable.
Carmelo shouldn’t close games
It’s not fair to put this loss on Carmelo Anthony’s shoulders. Yes, he didn’t have a great game. But a dozen things went wrong on Portland’s end, and making him the scapegoat would be a naive mistake. That being said, there was absolutely no reason for Melo to be in at the end of last night’s game.
Late in the fourth quarter, Carmelo had attempted seven 3-pointers with no success up to that point. Coming out of a timeout, the Trail Blazers cut the deficit down to just 5 points and had a critical opportunity to even the odds with the score at 95-100. What shot did they take? A 26-foot jump shot for Melo, that hit the front rim like so many other shots before it. This was followed up by Larry Nance Jr. grabbing an offensive rebound over Anthony for a put-back dunk. The Blazers could not overcome that 7-point deficit with just 150 seconds left on the clock.
But maybe they could have. Dame was fully prepared to try pulling the Blazers to another win. But as Tristan Thompson bullied Melo on the low-post, he got an easy dunk while Anthony was searching for an offensive foul. Had Skal Labissiere been in the game instead, maybe Portland could have stifled Cleveland down the stretch by making better decisions.
The Trail Blazers will get one more chance to pick up a win in Chicago before finally returning home to rest after a long and exhausting six-game road trip.