Blazers Start Road Trip With Much-Needed Blowout Of Pacers
Portland wasn't perfect against the Indiana Pacers. For a team entering Tuesday's action losers of five straight, though, it nevertheless provided some much-needed encouragement. The Trail Blazers blew out the woefully short-handed Indiana Pacers 133-112 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, dominating in all facets after a rough start defensively.
A high-scoring, back-and-forth affair went Portland's direction for good midway through the second quarter, when Indiana – playing without Myles Turner, Damontas Sabonis and Goga Bitadze – fell wholesale victim to its utter lack of size on the interior. Nate Bjorkgren's team fought back a bit to narrow its deficit to below single-digits before intermission, but Portland blew the game wide open early in the third quarter with a barrage of threes and upperdintensity defensively.
The hot-shooting Blazers went 20-of-35 from beyond the arc, outscoring the Pacers by 30 on threes. Anfernee Simons couldn't miss for most of the game, draining his first nine triples en route to 27 points – all from deep.
Portland, predictably, reigned just as supreme on the offensive glass. Enes Kanter grabbed nine of his team's misses all by himself, and Jusuf Nurkic had four offensive boards. The Blazers took a whopping 20 more field goal attempts than the Pacers, a winning numbers game most accomplished by their 20-7 edge in offensive rebounds.
Damian Lillard, still clearly lacking a degree of explosiveness, willed his way to 23 points, four rebounds and six assists before sitting out the entire fourth quarter. C.J. McCollum added 20 points on 9-of-13 from the field, while Kanter, Nurkic, Robert Covington and Carmelo Anthony also reached double-figures.
Norman Powell, notably, went scoreless after missing all six of his shots and failing to get to the free throw line. Derrick Jones Jr. didn't score, either, appearing for just a single four-minute stint despite in the first quarter.
The Blazers' defense was ugly early. Indiana got wherever it wanted off the dribble, Malcolm Brogdon proving too fast and Caris LeVert too shifty at the point of attack. Even T.J. McConnell enjoyed a personal scoring run in the second quarter, exploiting Portland's decision to make Anthony his primary defender and switch ball screens with Nurkic.
Much of Portland's success on Tuesday can just be attributed to shot-making, too. This team was always bound for some regression to the mean from three after struggling to hit makable jumpers of late.
It's not like there was some major stylistic shift here, either. The Blazers didn't make major changes to the rotation or go out of their way to diversify the offense. The defensive issues were still obvious versus a thoroughly depleted opponent, and two marquee additions with uncertain futures – Powell and Jones – were non-factors.
Try to forget all that for now.
Portland badly needed this win, and the momentum that could come with it. Maybe the good vibes emanating from a blowout victory gets the Blazers out of their rut.
We'll find out in less than 24 hours, when postseason stakes are on the line again with a third and final matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies.