The Portland Trail Blazers put on an offensive masterclass to get the best of the pesky Washington Wizards in a 132-121 victory.
After being blown out 24 hours ago by the Milwaukee Bucks, the Portland Trail Blazers put on an offensive show to get the best of the Wizards on the road. The elite shooting touch must have rubbed off the Bucks and into the Blazers’ hands, who made 21 three pointer’s, the same mark Milwaukee made the night before.
In this piece, I will be pointing out 3 key takeaways that I saw in the game.
Offensive balance:
This may be the most balanced offensive performance we will see from the Blazers this season, and it was the reason Portland came away with the win. 6 players scored 14 points or more, with major contributions from Damian Lillard (32 points) and Gary Trent Jr (26 points).
However, the most exciting thing to see was Robert Covington find his shooting stroke. Covington had 19 points and 9 rebounds in his best performance for the Blazers so far. Covington was shooting 27% from 3-point range before this game and was struggling to find an offensive rhythm, but in this game was 5-8 from beyond and didn’t look like missing.
The other major positive was Rodney Hood, who had 15 points but looked like he had his legs back underneath him. From start to finish, Hood had great lift and bounce in his jumpshot, a welcome sign that he could be approaching full health and form.
Carmelo Anthony will always have it:
It’s natural, when a team has a bad night or bad stretch, underperforming players are scrutinized. Melo had been far from his best. But no one can deny that he is one of the best scorers of the 21st century, and a man who tonight moved to 13th all-time on the NBA scoring list will always have the skills to score the ball.
So despite the criticism being warranted, fans should not give up on Carmelo Anthony, and he proved why tonight. He had 21 points in 26 minutes and showed that he could be a fantastic source of instant offense off the bench.
The key is to get him involved in the offense naturally and limit the heavy isolation that can consume the Portland offense at times. Regardless, Melo will always have the ability to score on any night.
Any win is a good win at the moment:
Fans will look at the Wizards record and think, “We should have won that” instead of appreciating the performance. The Blazers had a whole starting lineup worth of players out tonight due to injury and ran a 7 man rotation on the road coming off a back to back.
No matter the team you are playing, that will be a tough game to win, so the Blazers’ effort should be celebrated.
It was important for the Blazers to bounce back after the tough loss the night before, and it was an excellent response. Moving on to the Philadelphia 76’ers on Thursday, it’s going to be a very tough task. However, with shooting like tonight, who knows, an upset may be coming.