The Portland Trail Blazers return home after what seemed like an endless couple of weeks on the road. The Blazers had just two home games in between a five-game road trip and a four-game road trip. Not to mention that this most recent trip, where the Blazers went 3-1, was a brutal road trip that involved four teams in the playoffs, at the time (New Orleans is technically not in the playoffs at the time of this blog post).
The Blazers start a seven-game home stand against the Philadelphia 76ers, the worst team in the NBA. On paper, this seems like a fantastic way to start a home stand, but coming off an emotional victory in Oklahoma City and not having LaMarcus Aldridge, Robin Lopez and Chris Kaman for this game, it could be considered a sort of trap game for Portland. The letdown of a great trip and not having one of your most potent offensive weapons is a setup that makes anyone nervous.
However, Portland was able to squash any doubts or fears about this being a competitive game. The Blazers beat the 76ers 114-93. The Blazers improve to 24-7 on the season and 13-2 at home. Portland now has the most wins in the NBA at the time of this post, but are still sitting in the second seed as Golden State is a half game ahead of Portland. The 76ers fall to 4-24 on the season 4-10 at home and continuing to develop and play competitively.
This game was all Portland’s from the start and it really should have been. Philly was competitive and kept it interesting in the first quarter by only being down three at the end, but afterwards Portland outscored them in the next three quarters by a combined 18 points. The 76ers did have the lead early, but Portland got their act together and left Philly in the dust.
The one statistic that shows the advantage was the three-point shooting. Portland went 18-for-43 from beyond the arc and shot 42%. While that is a lot of three-point attempts, that is also a lot of makes if you think about it. Wesley Matthews poured in seven of his own. He finished with 25 points on 9-for-18 shooting, 7-for-14 from three, with two assists, one rebound and one steal. At this point, Matthews is almost automatic from three-point land. Philadelphia does not defend the perimeter, specifically the three-point shot very well. Portland had many opportunities for open threes, hence the 43 attempts. But, Matthews kept finding open spots and swishing the three-pointers. Realistically, he is obviously not automatic, but it seems that he has gotten a lot more accurate and sharp from beyond the arc. In his past three games (including this one), he has gone 15-for-27 from three. It is impressive and quite a handful to deal with for the opposition.
Portland did shoot 48% from the field and every single Portland player who played scored. I am in no way comparing Portland to San Antonio, but that is similar to what the Spurs tend to have in their box scores and how they win ball games. The Spurs rely on balanced scoring and good shot selection from all of their players. Portland, while not nearly as efficient or crisp as the Spurs in that regard, are starting to get that feeling. Every player off that bench feels like they can contribute and they do, for the most part. There are still some boneheaded plays from time-to-time (Will Barton’s ill-advised three-point shot early in the shot clock in the fourth quarter of this game), but the Blazer bench is growing and is stepping up when it is needed.
What is most impressive is the fact that Portland continues to win through this stretch of injuries to critical players in Portland’s starting line-up. Lopez has been out for a couple of weeks, Aldridge has been dealing with a stuffy nose that is sticking around and Kaman was out tonight for the birth of his child. Initially, when the Lopez injury happened, it seemed almost catastrophic. Lopez was such a huge part that it felt as if when he went down, then the whole defense would too as well as the chemistry that defines this team. While there have been some minor bumps in the road, Portland still ranks 6th in points allowed at 97.2 and continue to win against high-caliber teams such as Oklahoma City and San Antonio, that says a lot about how good this team truly is.
It also helps that Damian Lillard is having a heck of a week and someone needs to check to see if his hands are actually on fire (seriously, are they?). Coming off a 40 point, 11 assist performance against the Thunder, he got right back into finishing with 28 points on 9-for-17 shooting, 3-for-8 from three, with nine assists, five rebounds and one steal. In his last ten games, he is averaging 26.0 points, 6.2 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals. Lillard is not only having a hot streak, but he is also blossoming. His game and attitude seem to be even more solid than they were before. He is now assisting at a higher clip, finishing at the rim much better than he did last season and he is better defensively. Lillard is on another level right now and I think this is just the evolution of his career and talent as he gets older. He is only 24 and is already one of the best point guards in the league. This may sound like a homer comment, but he is a top-five point guard. Past Stephen Curry, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul, who else would you put there?
Portland’s backcourt did the damage as you can see with a combined 53 points.
Joel Freeland, starting in the place of Lopez, finished with six points and a career-high 17 rebounds, with one assist and one block. Outside of Nerlens Noel and Henry Sims, who are young or not big, Freeland could do whatever he wanted. He battled inside and corralled many a rebound for Portland. He did all of this in just 25 minutes of play. Now, he has been foul-prone in his last five games, averaging 4.2 a game, but in the time that he is on the court he has made an impact. Again, he is Nick Collison 2.0.
The only statistics I did not like were the turnovers. Portland had 21 turnovers, which resulted in 18 points for Philly. The 76ers do play the passing lanes and active defense. They use their scrambling nature on defense to their benefit and confuse teams a lot of the time. Portland got caught a few times trying to attempt alley-oops or got the ball stripped from them and it resulted in a lot of turnovers. However, lucky for Portland, the 76ers average 18 turnovers per game. So, more often than not, the Blazers did get the ball right back.
But, Portland needs to trim down the turnovers. In the OKC game, they had 14 turnovers. In the Houston loss they had 22. Teams will capitalize and Blazer fans saw that in the Houston game where the turnovers were one of main factors that allowed the Rockets to win that game.
Portland also allowed the 76ers to score a whopping 64 points in the paint. Now, this is Philly’s bread and butter right now. They have no outside shooters and they just attack the paint and are always coming after you. It is not surprising that they scored that much in the paint, but the Blazers did let a few easy ones slip through on the defensive end.
The Blazers avoided the trap game nonsense and are now in a great position. Aldridge has another day to rest up and the Blazers knock off another game with Lopez. Portland is doing their job and taking care of business. Next up, another business-like game against the New York Knicks. Here’s a shocking statistic: the 76ers have four wins, while the Knicks have five. Imagine that. Still, Carmelo Anthony is a lot harder to deal with than Tony Wroten. Tip-off is a 6:00 p.m. PST at the Moda Center on Sunday. Stay tuned!