Portland Trail Blazers vs. Los Angeles Lakers, Game 2: Injury report + watch details

The Portland Trail Blazers have a chance to become just the third No. 8 seed to steal the first two games against a No. 1 seed in tonight’s game against the Lakers. Here’s how to watch.

Before the inaugural game of this series tipped off, NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley made a bold — or perhaps just bolder than usual — take: if they stole Game One, the Portland Trail Blazers would effectively go on to sweep the Los Angeles Lakers.

Chapter Two in the Barkley theory will be written tonight, as the Blazers hope to join the 2016-17 Chicago Bulls and 1992-93 Los Angeles as the only No. 8 seeds in NBA history to go up 2-0 in a first round best-of-seven series.

As reassuring as the one-game series lead is, the amount of anomalies in the opening matchup could lead to a regression to norm. Anthony Davis, for example, had the worst shooting game of his postseason career. He said before the Playoffs that he wanted to pay tribute to Kobe Bryant; the 8-of-24 field goal line couldn’t have been what he meant by that.

Per StatMuse, the Blazers held an opponent under 100 points for the first time since Jan. 7. In that game, LeBron James had 16 assists, and the Lakers still found a way to miss 14 wide-open shots. The Lakers are hoping to see drifts somewhere towards normalcy. On the contrary, Carmelo Anthony won’t regularly shoot 3-of-11, and Gary Trent Jr. won’t always be 2-of-8.

There’s also some expectation that both teams will have a better expectation of lineup tweaks. The Blazers, for example, will have to adjust to life temporarily without Zach Collins. Los Angeles could see some adjustments in their lineup with JaVale McGee. He’s been a net negative in every game he’s played. And even when Portland went with their two-big lineup, he struggled to produce.

With those minor subplots in mind, here are a few details to note for the Game Two tip.

Game-for-Game Playoff Scores:
Game 1 — Portland Trail Blazers, 100; Los Angeles Lakers, 93 (POR leads 1-0)

How to follow the action:
— Date: Tuesday, Aug. 20th
— Time: 6:00 pm PT
— How to watch: TNT, NBC Sports Northwest, or fuboTV
— How to listen: NBA League Pass, Rip City Radio 620 AM

Injury report, per CBS Sports:
— (POR) — Zach Collins, ankle (expected to be out until at least Aug. 26)
— (POR) — Nassir Little, illness (expected to be out until at least Sep. 1)
— (LAL) — Rajon Rondo, thumb (game-time decision)

Projected starting lineups, Portland Trail Blazers:
— Damian Lillard (G), CJ McCollum (G), Carmelo Anthony (F), Wenyen Gabriel (F), Jusuf Nurkić

Projected starting lineups, Los Angeles Lakers:
— LeBron James (G), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (G), Danny Green (F) Anthony Davis (F), JaVale McGee (C)