That was a little harder than it needed to be. The Portland Trail Blazers, after securing a 19-point lead against the Orlando Magic early in the game, allowed the Magic to surge right on back. However, the Blazers were able to scrap their way to a 103-92 victory over the Magic.
The Blazers improve to 29-8 on the season (one game ahead of last season) and now are the owners of an 18-3 record at home (best home record in the NBA). Orlando falls to 13-27 on the season and a 9-15 record on the road.
Firstly, the Blazers dominated the bookends of this game. The first quarter and the fourth quarter were all Blazers, but a lethargic and somewhat lazy bunch in the middle allowed the Magic to make it a game. On the first night of a back-to-back, there is hope that especially against the team like the Magic, that Portland can build a substantial lead and then head coach Terry Stotts can rest the starters for the fourth quarter. It looked to be that way early on. Portland would outscore the Magic 26-13 and have a lead as much as 15 in the first quarter. It looked to be one of those games where Portland took the competition out of it early and they would only have to sustain the lead.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. The Magic would crawl their way back in the second quarter, outscoring Portland by eight. The Magic would go on to shoot 50% from the field and from three-point land in the quarter. The Blazers had a 19-point lead and looked to be in complete command. However, once the Magic started tightening up on defense and getting confident, Portland started to get lazy and careless. After a couple of impressive alley-oops, the Blazers continued to try and add to the highlight reel. However, with a young and running team like the Magic, the Blazers started having problems with points slowly leaking away. Portland would shooting 41% from the field, but would attempt seven threes and make just two. The Blazers got three-happy and tried to take the game back immediately instead of running standard plays and attempting great shots. Attempted alley-oops, ill-advised long passes and the fact that Portland tried to erase those sins by hitting threes added up to a Magic team making it a ballgame.
It did not stop there. In the third quarter, the Magic continued their hot shooting, shooting 50% from the field. This time, however, Portland responded by hot shooting of their own. The Magic would continue to play good basketball, to the point of obtaining a four-point lead in the quarter. Furthermore, they capitalized on Portland’s many, many turnovers. The Blazers turned the ball over five times in the quarter, but Orlando was able to grab nine points off of them. A lot of those points came from Damian Lillard turnovers. In three possessions, Lillard made head-scratching and questionable long passes that landed in the laps of Orlando players. This led to easy buckets in transition and frustrating issues for Portland. After the end of the third quarter, Portland had a two-point lead. At that moment, it was comfortable and relieving to see Portland not give this game away, but considering the position they were in early in the game with a comfortable and dominating 19-point lead, it was frustrating and unnecessary that Portland should work this hard.
Portland would go on to win this game in a dominating fourth quarter, outscoring the Magic 31-22. Victor Oladipo missed a lot of shots from mid-range and from three scoring just one point on 0-for-4 shooting in the quarter. Wesley Matthews got it going scoring ten of his 18 points in the quarter, including a three-point play that turned the tide. Still, underneath the business-like demeanor and the energy to seal away the Magic, Portland still turned the ball over seven times leading to ten points for Orlando, which is something most fans might overlook. Portland went to the line more in the fourth quarter, attempting five more shots and scoring four more points than Orlando. In the first three quarters, Portland went 9-for-11 from the free throw line. In the fourth quarter alone, they went 12-for-15.
Portland got lucky. First of all, Tobias Harris and Evan Fournier, both critical weapons to this Orlando offense, were both out for this game. Secondly, Channing Frye was having a horrible game shooting-wise. Anybody remember those Phoenix games last year that made fans scream? Frye was the catalyst and made it all the more frustrating with his three-point shooting, ability to stretch the floor and his surprisingly good defense on LaMarcus Aldridge, which was on display tonight. Frye finished with just three points on 1-for-10 shooting, 1-for-8 from three with eight rebounds, three assists and two steals. Again, Frye makes a couple more shots and this game is entirely different. Furthermore, he still continued to play great defense on LA. Frye is the only player I know who knows how to not foul LA we he turns the corner to the basket. Frye raises his arm high and does not budge forcing Aldridge to move all the way around instead of blowing past the defender. Frye is the kind of player that can set a team off. Tonight, he was not feeling it offensively and that was huge for Portland.
Even without Frye, Orlando almost managed to steal a win. Nikola Vucevic, the human vaccum, finished with a career-high 34 points on 15-for-23 shooting, with 16 rebounds and two assists. Vucevic was the only Orlando player to have it going consistently. Only one other play scored in double digits, but Oladipo was 6-for-21 with 18 points. Not exactly the most efficient night. I was surprised the Vucevic did not get more touches in the fourth quarter. In almost seven minutes of play in the quarter, he attempted just three shots and had six points. Credit to the Blazers’ defense for making that option harder to get to for Orlando, but I saw way too many Oladipo pull-ups and three-pointers that rimmed out.
Portland would go on to have 20 whopping turnovers. Did the ball roll out in the Portland rain tonight? The Magic would score 23 points off of turnovers and Portland had to constantly battle through them. This game featured several ugly or head shaking turnovers. Chris Kaman would have five, Nicolas Batum and LA would have three and Lillard had four. Portland plays with fire in that aspect a lot more than they should. It seems like when Portland gets a couple of turnovers early, the floodgates open and more and more spill out. Take care of the ball!
LA was Portland’s leading scorer with 25 points on 10-for-22 shooting, 1-for-1 from three, with six rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block. LA had spurts of hot shooting and was a factor. He played Frye better, but still had a difficult time dealing with him mainly because Frye pushes LA out. LA had a lot of ground to cover most of the night and settled for a lot of his patented mid-range jumpers.
Lillard had a rough night once again. He finished with 16 points on 3-for-10 shooting, 2-for-8 from three with five assists, five rebounds and one steal. Elfrid Payton, Orlando’s rookie and No. 10 pick of the draft, used his defensive skills to slow Lillard down and it worked. Payton and Vucevic worked to keep Lillard in a box all night long and force Lillard to give up the ball in many situations. Payton was a defensive machine in college and was all over Lillard. Payton stayed in his air space and followed Lillard around. Lillard would hit a three-pointer in the fourth quarter than ended up being a huge momentum bucket, but beyond that Lillard got most of his points from the line (8-for-10) and struggled to get into a rhythm.
Matthews continues to have lethal shooting statistics. He finished with 18 points on 6-for-9 shooting, 4-for-6 from three with eight rebounds, three assists and four steals (season-high). Wesley continues to say he is not a shooter, but I would disagree as he has become a sharpshooter this season.
Meyers Leonard continues his effective playing. He finished with 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting, 1-for-3 from there with six rebounds and one assist. He went 3-for-5 in the first quarter with seven points and four rebounds. He did however have an interesting play occur. After the ball got tipped over half-court by a Blazer, Meyers let the ball go, knowing that it would be an over-and-back. Unfortunately, Leonard stopped running and Orlando seized the opportunity and beat Leonard out for an easy lay-up. Meyers is improving and is looking like a real NBA player, but he still has plays where his brain locks up or he overthinks a situation. Still, what fans have seen from him in the last couple of games is encouraging with signs of growth.
The Blazers will not have much time to rest as they fly down to Los Angeles to take on the Lakers once again in the Staples Center. Tip-off is at 6:30 p.m. PST tomorrow. There will be a player named Kobe Bryant who will most likely be playing and the Lakers tend to be a different team at home even though that own a 6-12 record there. Regardless, Portland had to play harder than they had to and now must potentially fight through some fatigue to get a victory in LA. Stay tuned!