The Portland Trail Blazers broke a sweat on Friday night in their matchup with the Sacramento Kings, but it was hardly a sauna in Golden 1 Center. Portland played it cool (or maybe hot?) shooting 48% from the field and 40% from the three-point arc on their way to a 120-107 victory. Portland now owns 9 wins on the season against only 3 losses. Even more impressively, they hold a 6-1 road record. Nice!
Here are a few observations from the game.
Center of Attention
Domantas Sabonis plays center for the Sacramento Kings.
Domantas Sabonis has been in a heck of a slump lately, almost like his confidence refuses to sign a lease with the city and is threatening to leave town. That left Trail Blazers center Donovan Clingan a simple job description: sag into the lane on defense until Sabonis proves he’s worth chasing, post up the smaller center on offense.
Now, not gonna lie, Sabonis had a good game under these conditions. He finished the game with 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists. But Clingan looked like a fish in water on both ends of the floor. He got to display footwork in the lane that people don’t realize he has. His pivots are compact and his finishes are smooth. On defense, he was a STOPPER when opponents came into the lane. It’s like watching someone try to score against a living wall.
Clingan had 13 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks at the final horn. It was great to see him play in his natural style instead of having to chase stretch-fives across kingdom come all night.
Transition Game
Sacramento isn’t good, but one thing they can do is run. When they rebound the ball, they push hard. Portland had a hard time keeping up during significant stretches of this game. Clingan wasn’t able to set up, obviously. Often Portland got stuck with a single wing on defense, sometimes trailing the play. Inevitably the third player down the floor—after the dribbler and Portland’s first defender—was a King.
Sacramento scored 20 in transition. It helped keep them in a game in which they were otherwise outclassed.
Threes
Talking about Portland without talking about three-pointers nowadays is like talking about Costco without mentioning $1.50 hot dogs. It may not be the healthiest thing, but it sure keeps them in business. Tonight the Blazers fired 40% on triples, hitting 17-42.
Sidy Cissoko is now of particular interest in this department. He shot just 1-4 behind the arc, but it’s not the number. He is an always-free, near-instantly-shooting outlet on the sidelines now. His shot confidence is sky high and teammates are finding him. Between that and Toumani Camara becoming a professional shooter, the Blazers are pretty dangerous at the wings.
Deni Avdija
We take Deni Avdija for granted a little bit, having seen his incessant drives into the paint for layups, dishes, or fouls. He did accomplished all of the above tonight. He’s so quick and so solid that his momentum is like a train barreling down a track. You never know exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s going to be big.
When the Blazers need a bucket, they go to Deni. That’s all you need to say. Avdija had 34 points tonight on 11-13 shooting, 9-9 from the foul line. That was plenty enough to help the Blazers along to victory.
Toumani Camara
It wouldn’t be right to mention one backbone forward without mentioning the other. Toumani Camara continues to be impressive defensively. He’s always in position to make a play, incessantly hounding opposing scorers. In one particularly-memorable play in the second quarter, Camara chased down Kings wing Keegan Murray, blocking a semi-break layup from behind the same way the athletic Murray usually does to others. You could just feel the crowd go, “KEE-GAN! MMMMM…other#&*%@ dang.”
Camara contributed 14 points on 5-7 shooting with a couple of steals and a couple of threes.
Scoot Henderson
We’d also be remiss if we didn’t point out that Scoot Henderson had a reasonable game, particularly on the defensive end. He scored 11 but shot only 3-10.
Micah Nori
Blazers Head Coach Micah Nori doesn’t let much slip. In the fourth period, with the Blazers up comfortably, the defense started to slip a little, as is customary. Nori saw about a possession and a half of that and called timeout to correct errors and refocus. He did the same thing two minutes later. It appears that bad habits won’t have much purchase on Nori’s watch, double-digit lead or no.
Up Next
Boxscore
The Blazers get another tough test versus an injured opponent, traveling to Minnesota to face the Timberwolves in the first game of a back-to-back on Monday night at 5:00 PM, Pacific.
