When NBA teams meet in back-to-back contests like the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder did on Wednesday evening, you always wonder if the second game will follow the pattern of the first. Portland won last night’s game against OKC…hold on, the Blazers just shot a three…123-103. They had to shake that off and…hold on, another three…remember that the score was 0-0 to start the night against one of the Western Conference’s most dangerous…wow, they took a three again…opponents.
Fortunately
Portland managed to do so mostly by…whoa, that was a LONG three…shooting…wait a minute, another three is going up…uhhhhh, by shooting…geez, ANOTHER three…and, uh, well, I bet you can guess how Portland generated offense tonight. Out of their first dozen shots in this game, Portland attempted 10 threes. Why? Because it was mathematically impossible for them to fire 13 triples in 12 attempts.
When they weren’t playing the NBA version of Pop-a-Shot, Portland actually did pretty well defending Oklahoma City, imposing their will physically due to the good graces of inconsistent, if not permissive, referees. It was a fine job of taking advantage of what the circumstances gave them.
Despite Portland’s attempt to score a million via the long ball, the score remained close between the two teams through the fourth period. When Portland got hot from distance, they prospered. Every time they cooled down, Oklahoma City came back. That final period was pretty epic, with floor-diving, scrambling, foul shooting, and incredibly tough shot-making replacing any pretense at fancy basketball the teams had made earlier. Damian Lillard provided some late-game heroics while his teammates gave their hearts (and perspiration) towards a victory.
When the smoke cleared, the Blazers ended up shooting 49 three-pointers in the game, generating 57 out of 118 points beyond the arc. That was enough to give them a 118-108 win, pushing their record to 8-3 for the season.
Deni Avdija led the Blazers with 28 points. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 31.
Stay tuned for extended analysis of the game coming soon, plus our Media Row Report overnight.
Up Next
Boxscore
The Blazers visit the Sacramento Kings on Friday night for the second NBA Cup game of the season. The action starts at 7:00 PM, Pacific.
