The Portland Trail Blazers aren’t going to apologize for their 134-133 overtime win over the hobbled Sacramento Kings on Thursday night.
They may have collapsed in the final minutes of regulation to lose an 18-point lead late at home. A referee’s questionable whistle may have swooped in like the Hand of God to rescue them in the final second of OT. It may have been the slimiest, nastiest, ugliest win this writer has seen in some time. But in the aftermath of that near-fatal shipwreck, Blazers acting
head coach Tiago Splitter and players were quick to point out that a win is a win.
The way they see it: It’s better to escape with the money, then reflect on lessons and mistakes in the getaway car rather than leave empty-handed.
“I told the guys now in the locker room,” Splitter said, “‘the good part about this is you can learn about the situations and you still won the game.’”
The night’s lessons had seemed so much simpler less than an hour earlier. With five minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Blazers had expanded their lead to 18. They seemed to be cruising to a stress-free win in a season that hasn’t featured many of those. Sure, they had surrendered 40 first-quarter points and far too many transition and paint points to a lowly Kings team missing Domantas Sabonis and Zach LaVine. But Portland had righted the ship. Many Blazers fans headed for the Moda Center exits around that point. One fan high-fived the usher near press row on his way out, pleased with a job well done.
With the Blazers leading 113-98 and 2:28 remaining, that’s when everything got complicated. The Kings ripped off a 16-1 run to close the game, aided by a disaster class of errors from the home team. Over those final few minutes, the Blazers went 0-5 from the field. They missed four free throws. They turned the ball over on a shot clock violation. They turned the ball over on an inbounds pass after a timeout. They fouled a 3-point shooter. They gave up a wide open, game-tying 3 to Kings forward DeMar DeRozan with eight seconds left. Then all they could muster was a desperation 3-point attempt from Jerami Grant that missed at the buzzer.
“I think we stopped playing,” Splitter said. “We didn’t manage the clock right, we were rushed. We turned over the ball, taking bad shots, and they were scoring on us every time.”
After that jarring meltdown, the Blazers did well to regroup and grab a 132-126 lead with 33 seconds left. Then once again, the Blazers shot themselves in the foot while the Kings made shots. After a turnover led to a Kings 3, Portland played the foul-up-3 game. DeRozan did his part by making the two free throws. Out of the timeout, the Blazers didn’t execute well and inbounded the ball to center Donovan Clingan, who Sacramento immediately sent to the foul line. At that point, the 7-foot-2 big man not known for free throw accuracy was 5-11 from the stripe. He missed both. DeRozan then scored on a tough turnaround jumper with four seconds left to give him 33 points and the Kings their first lead since the third quarter.
Out of timeouts, the Blazers inbounded the ball to star forward Deni Avdija deep in the backcourt. He raced up the floor, plowed through Russell Westbrook and Keon Ellis and tossed up a running floater just inside the 3-point arc. It glanced off the front of the rim as the buzzer sounded. The Kings bench started to spill onto the floor to mob DeRozan. Then the arena realized referee Marc Davis’ whistle was sputtering and his fist was raised high. To the surprise of what seemed like everybody in the building — including Avdija himself — Davis had called a foul on Westbrook on the shot.
“I did create a lot of contact,” said Avdija, who finished with a game-high 35 points on 12-19 shooting. “I didn’t expect to get [the foul call], especially, it’s like one second left and I tried to bump Russ and threw up a shot. But when you watch the replay, I did get bumped off my spot, so you can say it was a foul, but not a lot of referees would call it a foul.”
Foul or not, Avdija went to the line with 1.5 seconds left. He buried them both. A half court heave by the Kings hit harmlessly off the backboard. After all that, the Blazers had secured their 11th win of the season by the skin of their teeth.
“Just a breath,” Grant said about the mood of the locker room after the win. “Like a breath of relief that we won the game, but also we understand that we almost threw that game away.”
“That’s not the way we want to win basketball games, so that’s definitely a little bit frustrating,” Blazers forward Toumani Camara added. “But I’m happy we won the game.”
That seemed to be the general sentiment from the team after surviving the near-collapse: Relief about holding on, and an acknowledgement that they should be better. There was also a lot of discussion about lessons and solutions, most of which had to do with watching film, staying poised and taking care of the ball. If you were expecting or even hoping for anger and expletives about their performance, the reality of the postgame scene was much tamer.
“It was a nice tone,” Splitter said about his postgame address to the team. “Just, ‘Guys, we gotta be better. We gotta learn from this.’”
The Blazers’ next opportunity to be better will come on Saturday when they face this same Kings team in Sacramento. Before Thursday’s game, Splitter had said he didn’t like playing the same team twice in a row in the regular season. He thought it was odd. Now, he’s eager for a rematch and a chance to get the taste of this one out of his mouth:
“Now I want to play them again and play better.”
