Portland Trail Blazers fall to Cleveland Cavaliers 3-point barrage

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Damian Lillard, Collin Sexton, Portland Trail Blazers, Cleveland Cavaliers Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports /

The Portland Trail Blazers comeback effort comes up short

This was certainly not a Cleveland runaway; their lead never grew to more than 12 points and Anfernee Simons chipped in seven of the Blazers’ points in a 10-3 run to cut the Cavs’ lead to a single point with 8:06 left.

Allen then went on a one-man 8-3 run to put Cleveland up 101-95, and the teams traded buckets until an old-fashioned three-point play by Lillard made it 107-104 with 31.2 seconds remaining.

After a Sexton long-range miss, Jusuf Nurkic rebound, and Portland time out, the Blazers set up an isolation play for Lillard in the corner for a game-tying three.

Up to that point Lillard had been a woeful 6-41 (15 percent ) from long range on the road for the season and 3-11 on the night, so it was little surprise when his attempt fell short as time expired.

The Cavs young backcourt duo of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland did their best junior Lillard and McCollum impressions, Sexton finishing with 21 points on 8-12 shooting and Garland hitting 5-6 from three point range to finish with 19.

But it was Jarrett Allen who was Cleveland’s best player, with 24 points on 9-15 shooting, seven rebounds, four assists, and countless disruptions of Portland’s drives to the rim.