of portland trailblazers Came home on the second night of the road back to back Indiana PacersDamian Lillard returned and scored 21 goals in 32 minutes, but the starters had a balanced result. All five scored in his double figures, and all five at least he knocked down one of his 3-pointers.
Portland’s big third quarter was the main difference. Shots from deep came from all angles and filled in the Pacers. Buddy Hield and Miles his Turner tried to keep it close, with the former his 22 and the latter his 24, but the Blazers responded to every run and won 116–100.
first quarter
The Blazers started the game in an unfamiliar way, with a theoretically optimal starting lineup intact. Seeing Lillard, Anfanie Simmons, Josh Hart, Jerami Grant and Yusuf Nurkic together is grand He’s floral Marching in anticipation of his parade It was something. Lillard’s first of his three falls in less than a minute he saw was like his first glimpse of the float at the head of the line.
The pace was quick out of the gate, with both teams running around the floor and whipping around the ball. Portland’s defense was a bit lax, but not as good as Indiana’s. Open jumpers and layups were the order of the day. As long as they only looked at one side of the court, fans of each team could pretend their team was doing well. It was a fun way.
As the halfway point approached, Indiana’s penchant for 3-pointers began to pay off, especially when combined with some aggressive rebounding. Their shots were relatively trouble-free and they started dropping frequently. The Blazers simply couldn’t keep up. Grant wowed the crowd with a 3:00 he hit, but Indiana still led 17-12 on him.
A mid-quarter timeout, plus one or two defensive substitutions (read: Justice Winslow and Drew Eubanks) helped clean up the defense and improve margins on the scoreboard. Portland’s shot still fell. The game looked easy when the Pacers stopped scoring even faster.
Dunks from Eubanks and Shadon Sharpe, plus a free throw on Sharpe’s foul dunk attempt, ultimately put the Blazers on top. Indiana can live in a long-ball shootout that they will probably win. But when Portland’s shots started coming out quick and easy, the Pacers couldn’t quite match.
The Blazers trailed Indiana with a 28-24 lead on the back of a second unit defense.
Second quarter
Sharp had a quick and bold 3-pointer from the second, and his scoring run wasn’t just about a dunk attempt, it didn’t end quickly. It was Indiana’s turn to step up the defense, pushing the Blazers out of the lane and contesting long shots. The Pacers weren’t able to score in large numbers, but the Blazers bottled up reclaimed control of the game, even with minimal point production. Given their own medicine, Portland came out on top again, 41-35. A further three a few minutes later made it feel like a period as halftime approached.
But Portland couldn’t hold up its defense forever. The Pacers got a couple of uncontested dunks and Miles got a hint from his Turner. Suddenly it was again. Hart was stranded on the drive and then made an offensive rebound putback and refused to flag the team. The action came and went and neither team could wrest control from the other for long. In general, the team that controlled the inside tended to increase rapidly, but the identity of that team was frequently replaced. However, the Blazers finished on the final run, ending the half with a 54–49 favorable but largely unsafe edge.
third quarter
The floodgates opened as the Blazers snatched early dunks from Nurkic and Grant. His two three-point shots from Simmons, Hart, Grant, and Lillard’s huge bombs opened the game wide. It’s all starters, but Nurkic at least he’s hitting one of his threes on the run. The Blazers defeated Indiana in their own game. The quarter ended with the Blazers enjoying a 19-point lead. 93-74. Jerami Grant led all scorers with his 22 goals, but all five starters already had him in double figures.
4th quarter
Simmons started the fourth quarter with 3, but Indiana responded with a heeled triple, a heeled steal and a heeled layup. Billups took Popovich’s timeout only to calm him down with 11:02 left in the game.
But Heald wasn’t finished. After a timeout, a Blazers mistake and another make from Hield’s Deep caused a ripple of tension in Moda’s center crowd. The Blazers finally stopped the run with a pair of Grant’s free throws to take the lead to 15 with 9:41 remaining. But that couldn’t calm the Blazers down, and the Pacers in general, and Hield in particular, continued to take the lead. it fell.
Just when the Blazers looked like they could cruise again, Lillard missed a contested fast-break layup and Turner scored a quick 3 to cut the lead to 11 again with 5:19 remaining. From that point on, the Pacers were semi-cold and the Blazers kept moving. With 2:09 remaining, Nurkic made two free throws to extend the lead to 17 as the starting pitchers began heading to the bench. The Portland bench took this home and the final score was him 116-100.
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The Blazers finally took a little break from their schedule, practicing and resting until Thursday night, Denver Nuggets 7 p.m. Pacific.
