Portland Trail Blazers fall to Cleveland Cavaliers 3-point barrage
By Joe Capraro
The Portland Trail Blazers are normally the ones doing the damage from long range, but the Cleveland Cavaliers rode 15-30 shooting from beyond the arc to a 107-104 win on Wednesday.
The Blazers fell to 3-5 on the season and 0-4 on the road, while the Cavs won their second straight to move to 5-4 and leapfrog Milwaukee for second place in the Central division. Portland is supported from below in the Northwest by only the woeful Thunder, who have won just once.
For the second game in a row, Portland’s opponent was without a key player; tonight it was Cleveland’s Lauri Markkanen, who joined teammate Kevin Love in the COVID penalty box.
The Cleveland Cavaliers take full advantage of the Portland Trail Blazers shoddy perimeter defense
Damian Lillard showed momentary flashes of breaking out of his early season shooting slump, and finished with a game-high 26 points, but shot just 10-27 and 3-12 from 3-point range.
Norman Powell pitched in with a 23 point, three rebound, 2 assist, and 3 steal performance, including a seven-point burst in a 1:05 stretch late in the second.
3-pointers by Powell and Robert Covington gave Portland a 6-0 lead out of the gate and they rode nine first quarter points from Lillard to a 26-23 advantage at quarter’s end.
Cleveland then got two quick threes from Dylan Windler (0-3 from three so far this season) to ignite a 17-5 run, and the Cavs never trailed again.