The Portland Trail Blazers faced the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night without Victor Wembanyama on the floor and with plenty to play for in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament race. None of that ended up mattering much. Portland showed up with a tepid effort–with spurts of energy, largely directionless–on their way to a 112-101 loss.
One saving grace is that, at the time of publishing, the Los Angeles Clippers are losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Clips are Portland’s opponent in the fight
for the 8th spot in the conference and its privileges in the Play-In Tournament. They’re also Portland’s opponent in their next game on Friday night. If the Clippers lose as well, Portland’s loss is no harm, no foul.
Deni Avdija was the leading scorer for Portland with 29. De’Aaron Fox led the Spurs with 25.
We’ll have more detailed analysis up soon. In the meantime here’s a slice of the game.
Player of the Game
We’re going to give this to Avdija, who has made a season out of barbecuing the Spurs. Avdija showed up again with 6 rebounds and 6 assists on 13-21 shooting to get his 29. He had 6 turnovers too but his teammates weren’t allowing him many outs besides charging straight forward and praying. At least he kept Portland within shouting distance.
Stat of the Night
The Spurs shot 49% from the field in this one. Believe it or not, they tailed off at the end of the game to get there. That tells you everything you need to know. They were only a little above average from the arc at 38%. But Portland couldn’t cut off the midrange games of their speedy guards, which then opened up the rim for cuts and passes. That high percentage was simply too much for the Blazers to overcome.
What We Noticed
It was a bad night for Portland’s point guards. Jrue Holiday shot 6-17, 1-7 from distance. Scoot Henderson wengt 7-20, 3-9 and looked brilliant by comparison. Even Blake Wesley only managed to shoot 1-4 in 4 minutes of play. Between them the trio had but 9 assists in 72 minutes of play. The Blazers just couldn’t get into anything besides iso ball.
Up Next
The Blazers now return home for a Friday night matchup with this year’s archrivals, the Los Angeles Clippers. The game starts at 7:00 PM, Pacific.
