The Portland Trail Blazers are the second-worst 3-point shooting team in the fourth quarter. In the team's most important fourth quarter in at least five years, they virtually abandoned the longball — and it was the smartest thing they could have done. With the season (sort of) on the line, the Blazers attempted just three 3-pointers in the final frame on Friday night, electing instead to fully attack the paint (where they went 5-7), and perhaps more importantly, shot 16 free throws as the Clippers kept being forced to foul to prevent easy buckets.
It felt like any time the Clippers forced a miss, the Blazers crashed the offensive glass either resulting in a putback or another foul, which eventually frustrated Brook Lopez so much that he received a well-earned technical foul. That may have been the nail in the Clippers No. 8 seed coffin.
See how magical life can be when you pretend the 3-point line doesn't exist, Blazers? It's what fans have been asking for all along, and I suppose listening to those pleas in the most important game of the season is the best time to do it, and it resulted in outscoring the Clippers 30-13 in the fourth quarter after entering the frame with a two-point lead.
This is the blueprint for maximizing the skillsets of these young Blazers, by the way. Neglect the 3-point line, get aggressive, and crash the offensive boards hard. Turn into the University of Houston Cougars. Just be really, really irritating to play against.
Deni Avdija said after the win that "The sky is the limit," for this team, and if the "sky" he's referring to means sort of irritating the Spurs or Thunder in the first round, then I agree. But to do that — in other words, to show this team is trending in the right direction and can hold its own against the league's best — we'll need to see more quarters like the fourth tonight.
Blazers played their best quarter of the year by attacking
In his postgame interview, Deni Avdija (35 points, 5 assists) said the Blazers were "connected" defensively. He's right — and I do think the team refusing to shoot 3-pointers and being so dominant in the paint did help that, as the Clippers had to consistently beat the Blazers' backcourt defensive pressure and set up their halfcourt offense.
"Outstanding performance defensively," Tiago Splitter said in his postgame press conference. "But tomorrow, back to work."
Assuming this team doesn't completely melt down on Sunday against the tanking Sacramento Kings, they will play the Phoenix Suns for the No. 7 seed in the NBA Playoffs. If they play 48 minutes like they did the final 12 on Friday, they can absolutely get that done. Zero 3-point attempts the rest of the season. Who's with me?