The Portland Trail Blazers get a nice reassuring victory before they embark on a tough five-game road trip. The Blazers demolish the Atlanta Hawks 102-78. The Blazers improve to 42-19 on the season while the Hawks will fall to 26-33 on the season.
Probably the biggest story of the night was Kyle Korver’s three-point streak. Coming into the game he had made at least one three in 127 consecutive games. Tonight, however, the streak came to an end. Korver only made one shot and missed all five of his three-point attempts. As a Blazer fan, you want to say that it was all Wesley’s defense. I would agree to a certain extent, but the Hawks’ offense was non-existent tonight. I think it was half defense half Korver not making shots he normally does. Either way, when that is the most exciting thing to happen in a game, you know that it is a pretty non-eventful game.
The Blazers obviously got the memo and decided to take it to the Hawks early instead of allowing them to get set into their offense and gain confidence, much like the Lakers did. The Blazers outscored them by ten in the first quarter and never really looked back. The main aspect of the Blazers’ game that was missing for some of the Laker game was ball movement. There was a lot of one-on-one play. Not tonight. The Blazers had a few dazzling ball movement displays that ended in a lay-up or a wide-open three. There are times when the Blazers can go one-on-one and they certainly have the players to do it (Damian Lillard, LaMarcus Aldridge, etc.). However, an extended streak of that kind of play slowly starts to drain the Blazers. Head coach Terry Stotts obviously had a talk about that and the Blazers answered accordingly. Now, the mission is to continue that style of play.
This game also was one of the few games where you felt like the Blazers were just flat out better than the Hawks. Despite Atlanta not having Paul Millsap or Al Horford playing, the Hawks can still do some damage with their backcourt of Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver. The defense and the offensive ball movement looked to be too much for Atlanta to handle. Atlanta just felt off all night and Blazer fans probably did not feel threatened at any time during this game.
All the starters played under 30 minutes, which is good. It gives them much-needed extra rest before going on a deadly Texas road trip. Just to show you how good this team can be, LaMarcus Aldridge went 1-for-13 from the field. You have to give credit to the Atlanta Hawks for swarming LA every time he had the basketball. Whenever Lillard would throw it in to LA, it was like a heat-seeking missile. A bunch of red shirts would collapse and LA would be forced to throw it out. Even when Atlanta single-teamed him, LA couldn’t get any kind of rhythm and it wasn’t for lack of trying. For half of the fourth quarter, Mo Williams kept feeding LA the ball and LA tried from many locations. This will pass because LA is just that good of a player, but it is still heartening to know that the Blazers can survive without LA going off.
Probably the most impressive stat of the night team-wise was the three-pointers. Portland went 13-for-29 from beyond the arc and shot 45%. They also managed to hit their free-throws (unlike in the Laker game). They finished going 19-for-21 from the line. To throw one disgusting stat at you, the Hawks went 4-for-27 from three and shot 15%. That is just gross and, like I said, obviously an off-night for them.
Individually, Nicolas Batum wins the stats. He has been on a tear from a rebounding perspective and finished with 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting, 3-for-5 from three and an impressive 18 rebounds. In his past three games he has combined for 49 rebounds. Those long arms are doing work.
Other than that, it was pretty balanced scoring. No particular Blazer went off and honestly nobody needed to. This was simply a taking-care-of-business type of game.
The Blazers will finally leave the friendly Moda Center after going 3-1 on this homestand. They will get a day-off tomorrow to fly to Dallas to take on the Mavericks on Friday. Like I said, this road trip is nasty with having to go through Dallas, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio and New Orleans. The bonus would be that it doesn’t end in Oklahoma City, either way it will be tough. Tip-off is at 5:30 p.m. PST as the Blazers hope to start another streak. Stay tuned!