The Portland Trail Blazers head to San Antonio tonight to take on the Spurs with their season on the line.
The Blazers have shown that they can win in the Alamo City, where they took Game 2 of their opening-round NBA Playoffs series last week. After that 106-103 victory, there appeared to be an unexpectedly wide opening for the Blazers to advance. The series shifted to Portland for Games 3 and 4 while Spurs star Victor Wembanyama’s status was uncertain due to a concussion he suffered in Game 2.
Unfortunately
for the Blazers, they were unable to defend their home court, squandering double-digit second-half leads in lose both games. Fortunately for the Spurs and NBA basketball fans everywhere, Wembanyama only missed Game 3. He returned with a vengeance in Game 4, leading the Spurs with 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven blocked shots as they took a commanding 3-1 lead in the series.
Now the Blazers find themselves in the unenviable position of needing to upset the healthy and heavily-favored Spurs on the road just to stay alive.
The Blazers will fly back to Portland after Game 5 regardless of the outcome. Will they force the Spurs to join them? Can they extend their season for at least another game?
Let’s take a closer look at Game 5.
What you need to Know:
Portland Trail Blazers at San Antonio Spurs – Tuesday, April 28th – 6:30pm Pacific
How to watch: ESPN, ESPN App
How to listen: Rip City Radio 620AM
Trail Blazers Injuries: Damiam Lillard (Out).
Spurs Injuries: None.
Spurs SB Nation Affiliate: Pounding the Rock
What to Watch For:
Depth: A lot has been written, and rightfully so, about the Blazers’ poor shooting from behind the three-point line. Our own Conor Bergin was at the Moda Center for Games 3 and 4 and wrote about the shooting woes after Sunday’s loss.
But not everybody is misfiring. In the series, Deni Avdija is 6-14 (42.9%), Jrue Holiday is 11-28 (39.3%) and Scoot Henderson is 12-26 (46.2%). Henderson no-showed in Game 4 on Sunday, missing all three of his attempts while going scoreless for the game, but was excellent in the three games prior.
Beyond those three players, the three-point shooting numbers get pretty ugly. Jerami Grant is 4-13 (30.8%), Toumani Camara is 6-20 (30%) and Shaedon Sharpe is just 2-9 (22.2%). Matisse Thybulle is 1-6 (16.7%) and did not even play in Game 4.
Will any role players step up to relieve some of the pressure on Avdija and Holiday? Can an unlikely hero find his shooting touch and keep the season alive?
Clingan’s Role: Donovan Clingan has struggled to shoot the ball as well and played just 14 minutes in Game 4 on Sunday afternoon. To put that in context, he appeared in 77 games during the regular season and played fewer than 14 minutes only once, thanks to a second-quarter ejection from a game in Memphis in early March.
But against the Spurs in this series, he hasn’t found a way to positively impact the game. He is 3-18 (16.7%) from behind the three-point line and just 10-35 (28.7%) shooting overall. In Games 1-4, the Blazers have been outscored by 38 points in his 80 total minutes on the court.
In his first two NBA seasons, Clingan has improved significantly and shown himself to be ultra-competitive. Unfortunately, the Spurs have the personnel to take away his strengths and exploit his vulnerabilities. Can he bounce back by knocking down a few three-pointers? Wreak havoc on the offensive glass? Or will he see even less playing time in Game 5?
RWIII’s Minutes: Robert Williams III has played very well backing up Clingan and figures to get a lot more playing time in Game 5.
Williams has made 17 of his 25 shots and is plus-eight in his 91 minutes in the series. He has done a little bit of everything, blocking six shots, dishing out 12 assists, and grabbing 30 rebounds across the first four games. He has played nearly mistake-free, committing only three fouls and turning the ball over just twice.
But it’s been awhile since he’s taken on this kind of workload. Every time the Blazers played on back-to-back days in the regular season, Williams sat out at least one of the games. He played more than 20 minutes only 13 times all season, but has now surpassed that number in each of the past three games against the Spurs. He played 30+ minutes only once all season, then didn’t play again for nearly a week and a half.
Can Coach Tiago Splitter get even more out of him? Will he consider starting him? How Splitter manages the minutes of Williams, Clingan and small center-free lineups will be interesting in Game 5.
What Others are Saying:
Michael C. Wright at ESPN wrote about the Blazers and the Spurs as part of an NBA Playoffs roundup. It’s easy to see that Wembanyama makes life difficult for any opponent that enters the paint, but Wright highlights a stat that demonstrates just how impactful the league’s Defensive Player of the Year has been:
Victor Wembanyama’s return from concussion protocol for Game 4 was important for getting him back into the flow and physicality of postseason basketball. Wembanyama has been dominant defensively in this series, limiting Portland to 5-of-30 shooting and just 10 points whenever he’s contesting a shot.
