Hey, there is the offense. Well, most of it. The Portland Trail Blazers squeak out a win by beating the Toronto Raptors 106-103 Saturday night and improve their record 34-13 on the season. 34 wins surpasses last season’s win total, which is very impressive.
Looking at the final score, you would not have known that the Blazers at one point held a 19-point lead. The Raptors made a furious comeback in the second half led by the red-hot shooting of DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. Shots that were clunking in the first half for Toronto were seemingly finding the basket. The defense, which has gotten a lot better since Rudy Gay departed, was running the Blazers off the three-point line and forcing them into tough shots. There were a couple of offensive possessions for the Blazers that were questionable down the stretch and could have very cost them the game. Believe it or not, the Raptors had a one-point lead with :17 left in the fourth quarter. That is a scary situation considering how the Blazers had played up until that point. If it hadn’t been for the heroics of Damian Lillard, who was able to shoot a floater to regain the lead, and Wesley Matthews, who ultimately made DeMar DeRozan lose control of the ball in Toronto’s final possession, Portland would not have been a happy place. Wesley Matthews made some key three-pointers to start the fourth quarter that now, looking back, were critical to a Blazer victory.
Portland, however, played superbly in the first half. They outscored the Raptors 31-19 in the first quarter and 26-21 in the second. Defensive intensity and offensive ball movement was evident right away. Long gone were the memories of the Memphis and Golden State games. This was the return of the Blazers we have come to love this season. Three-pointers, slick passes and clutch plays were all featured in tonight’s game. However, the second half was Portland’s enemy tonight. The Raptors outscored the Blazers 63-49. Like I said above, DeRozan and Lowry were hitting from everywhere and Chuck Hayes was brought in to guard LaMarcus Aldridge. Hayes gave LA a lot of problems. LA would try to bump him back, but Hayes wouldn’t budge and really felt like a brick wall. This forced LA into some less than optimal shots and disrupted his rhythm. You just have to give credit to this Toronto team. After trading Rudy Gay, they are now 19-10 and are three games over .500. To top it off, they are a three seed in the weak Eastern Conference. This Raptors team is coming and it is just a matter of time before they start to make some noise.
This game marks the return of some comfortable and familiar statistics. The Blazers went 8-for-18 from beyond the arc and shot 44%. Now that is more like it. They shot 80% from the foul line and 46% from the field. You think offense was priority tonight? Portland outscored the Raptors in the paint 40-36 while out-rebounding Toronto 42-37. The one that catches my eye is the number of personal fouls called this game. Portland recorded 24 while Toronto had 30. That is right 54 fouls were called. Talk about a long game.
Toronto struggled from range as they went 6-for-20 and shot just 30% from three. The Blazers did a good job defending the three-point line. It is good to see that the only made three-pointers were either from ridiculous range or while falling over. However, Toronto did shoot 46% from the field and really were able to get what they wanted in the second half. Their offense seemed dead in the first half. Blazer head coach Terry Stotts put Nicolas Batum on Kyle Lowry right away and it confused the Raptors’ offense somewhat, but as fans saw tonight, this Raptor offense can explode any minute and can make games very interesting.
LaMarcus Aldridge did not have the greatest shooting night, but was still able to provide an all-star-like performance. He finished with 27 points on 8-for-22 shooting and 15 rebounds. Like I said above, Chuck Hayes seems to be an Aldridge stopper. Hayes is a tank. LA was always pushed outside of his range when he got the ball on the block and would have to really fight his way back in. Unfortunately, most of those shots ended in misses. In the third quarter, LA was just 1-for-6 while in the fourth quarter he was only able to get up three shots, two of them being misses. I hate to say it, but Chuck Hayes took LA out of the game in the second half. However, you cannot argue with the numbers and LA was still able to have an effect in the overall matchup.
The Blazer that really had it going was Wesley Matthews. He finished with 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting, 5-for-7 from three and three assists. Matthews finally found his shooting stroke again and boy did Portland need it. It was impressive to watch as Matthews was in foul trouble most of the night. He finished the night with five personal fouls, but he played a good chunk of time with four. Wesley is MVP of the game for me. Without his three-point shooting, Portland would have had a much tougher time trying to win this game.
Damian Lillard, fresh off of his all-star announcement, got back on track as he finished with 21 points on 8-for-15 shooting, 1-for-4 from three, 7 assists, 6 rebounds and most importantly, zero turnovers. On a night where people pegged this as Kyle Lowry’s revenge for getting snubbed from the All-Star game, they both canceled each other out. The thing that concerns me is the three-point shooting. Lillard has not been able to shake defenders off of him or get high-percentage three-point looks. It isn’t like he is bricking them horribly, but it is still odd. Over his last four games he has gone 6-for-28 from three point land.
Portland leaves tomorrow for Washington as they embark on a four-game road trip yet again. The Portland Trail Blazers will take on the Washing ton Wizards at the Verizon Center Monday night at 4:00 p.m. PST. Washington, at the time of this posting, had just halted the Thunder’s win streak and beat them by 15. The Wizards are finally playing some good basketball. Should be fun. Stay tuned!