The Portland Trail Blazers survived the onslaught of Steph Curry to come away with a 136-131 win over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday evening. A three-point shootout in the second half led to an explosive
finish in a back-and-forth game.
The Blazers were led in scoring by the 35 points of Shaedon Sharpe and Jerami Grant.
The Warriors got a classic Stephen Curry performance. He had 48 points in the game, 36 of which came in the second half. That included 12 three-pointers made on just 18 attempts.
Player of Note
As mentioned before, Shaedon Sharpe led the Blazers in scoring with 35 points on the night. It was his first career game with 30 points through three quarters. He was quiet in the fourth quarter, but his work throughout the game kept Portland competitive through some runs from the Warriors. He shot 12-18 from the field and 5-7 from behind the arc. In addition to the scoring, he added 4 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 boards to his total.
Jerami Grant was also incredibly important throughout the game, especially in the final frame. He also finished the game with 35 points, 19 of which came in the fourth quarter. He also had a season-high 7 three-pointers made on 13 attempts in the game.
Stat of the Night
Portland showed what their offense could look like when their shots from deep are falling. They made 20 of their 39 attempts from distance, good for 51% shooting. The high-volume shooting strategy has been a rough watch at times this season with how poor the Blazers have shot, but this game it was exciting to watch shot after shot drop through the net.
Tom Haberstroh mentioned on the broadcast that this was just the 6th time this season Portland has shot better than 38% from behind the arc this season. All 6 have led to wins so far.
What We Noticed
Stephen Curry began to heat up in the third quarter of the contest. He scored 12 points, all off three-pointers, in a three minute span. It looked like the Warriors were threatening to pull away leveraging that advantage. However, the Blazers were able to weather that storm and keep the game close. Curry’s impact was limited late in the quarter and Portland managed to head into the fourth quarter down just three points.
The fourth quarter was more of the same from Curry, who scored 10 points in just over 2 minutes. Once again it looked like the Blazers were going to be left in the dust. Once again, they battled back. A 12-0 run right after took the lead back and put the two teams into a deadlock again.
The end of the game turned into Curry vs. the Blazers, and he very nearly won it for Golden State. His 18 points in both the third and fourth quarters gave the Warriors a major boost, but it was not quite enough as Portland squeaked out the win.
Up Next
The Blazers have another long break between games, this time sticking around at home before taking on the Sacramento Kings on Thursday, December 18th at 7:00 p.m. PST.
