The Portland Trail Blazers keep on trucking at just the right time. The Trail Blazers gut out another victory against a scrappy defensive team as they beat the Memphis Grizzlies 105-98. Portland improves to 48-27 on the season and the Grizzlies fall to 43-30 and what is ridiculous is that Memphis wouldn’t be in the playoffs if they started today. The West is stacked. Portland currently is sporting a nice little three-game winning streak and winning against quality teams once again.
Memphis has given the Blazers trouble this season. In the first matchup, Portland got pummeled and lost 98-81. In the second matchup, it was more competitive, but it still ended in a 10-point loss for the Trail Blazers. Coming into tonight’s game, Golden State, Phoenix, Dallas and Memphis are all chasing the Trail Blazers for a fifth seed. This was an important game to say the least. Not only was this game important for seeding purposes, but Portland also needs to just keep winning. It has been a little while since the Trail Blazers have rattled off a five-game winning streak and right now they need to do just that.
Luckily, the basketball gods favored Portland tonight as Golden State and Phoenix lost. With a win over Memphis the Blazers gain some valuable breathing room going into this relatively easy stretch of games at home.
Back to the game, Portland continues to be aggressive all night long. In the first quarter, it was gritty and Portland and Memphis really battled it out. Zach Randolph hit three out of four shots in the early minutes of this ball game, but LaMarcus Aldridge came to play as well. Both teams traded baskets and it felt like it was going to be a game that would wear everyone out. Memphis had every motivation to win this game. Coming off a loss to Golden State, Memphis needs to win some ballgames to even be in the playoffs let alone get a good seed. The biggest thing that helped the Trail Blazers was the non-existent offensive cold spells. There was continuous offense and the Blazers never got into a hole. With the help of Mo Williams and Thomas Robinson, the Blazers took a two-point lead into the second quarter. Considering how Memphis has completely crushed the Blazers this year, this was a good sign.
Portland continued to be aggressive all through the second quarter and played a similar kind of style that was in the Chicago game. Portland tried to get down fast before Memphis’ defense could set up and it worked for some easy lay-ups. Portland scored nine fast-break points and against this Memphis team, that is quite a lot, all things considered. Portland’s bench stepped up once again. Thomas Robinson went 3-for-3 in the second quarter while Mo Williams went 3-for-3 also. LA made both of his attempts and the defensive effort was impressive. Nicolas Batum was grabbing at the ball whenever a player had it and Mo Williams was all over his man. The Blazers outscored the Grizzlies by ten in the second quarter and Memphis never really recovered.
Portland came out in the third quarter and continued to pour it on by outscoring the Grizzlies 29-25. LA continued his dominance by going 3-for-4 in the quarter, while Batum chipped in going 2-for-4. The player that erupted and did not make a single field goal in the first was Damian Lillard. He went 4-for-5 in the quarter including two three-pointers.
However, Memphis finally got their defense together in the fourth quarter as the Blazers only mustered 19 points to Memphis’ 28. However, the hole was just too big for Memphis to come back and Portland made critical buckets when necessary. Sound familiar Blazer fans? This team is slowly doing the things necessary to win ballgames. Not going into massive offensive cold spells, get stops when needed, make the critical buckets when the momentum needs to shift and making free throws.
What does this mean for Portland? Well, they get to keep sitting in the fifth seed for another day. The Blazers are now two games ahead of Golden State at the time of this blog post and all the other teams underneath either didn’t play or lost. It will still come down to the wire and Blazer fans should circle the Golden State game in the Moda Center on April 13th, the second to last game of the season. That game will most likely have huge playoff implications and the Blazers would love to get a season series tie against that team.
The most impressive stat the Portland had was the FG percentage. They shot 52% from the field, while shooting 33% from downtown. Also important, they finished shooting 88% from the line and missed just three free throws. LA made all eight of his FTs while Wesley Matthews made all five. The stat that impressed the heck out of me was actually from Memphis. They recorded 11 steals on the night.
Individually, Mo Williams and LaMarcus Aldridge carried the Blazers throughout this game.
LA finished with 28 points on 10-for-20 shooting and had four rebounds. He started early by making the first shot of the game and just continued from there. He got a little banged up in the fourth quarter and was clutching that hip that got banged up, but he looked to be okay as he finished out the game on the court.
Mo Williams continues to be extremely effective coming down to these final games. He finished with 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting, 1-for-3 from three and had 4 assists. In his last two games he has combined for 35 points on 14-for-21 shooting in 53 minutes of play. Those were also against defensive teams in Chicago and Memphis. Impressive and greatly appreciated as the Blazers need any offense that they can muster.
The Blazers get a day off to fly to LA to take on the Lakers on Tuesday night. Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m. PST (I still do not get the extra half hour for LA and Golden State games). The Blazers lost a head scratcher to the Lakers early this month and will look to pay them back. Like I said, these next three of four games could easily be fodder for Portland with games against LA, New Orleans and the Kings. Take care of business. Stay tuned!