Maybe one might’ve expected the Portland Trail Blazers to struggle more in the second half against the Miami Heat on Thursday night at the Moda Center.
The track-meet Heat were playing at their usual breakneck pace and putting up points, with star Bam Adebayo on his way to 32 points and 10 rebounds. More significantly, after scoring 20 points, Deni Avdija had to exit at the 10:03 mark of the third quarter in a close game because his back issue flared up, meaning the Blazers would have to go the rest
of the way without their star.
But these Blazers are on too much of a roll right now and too used to adjusting to injuries this season to come undone easily.
“The whole year has been next man up, so it’s like riding a bike to us now,” Blazers center Robert Williams III said about the team’s response to playing without Avdija.
(By the way, both Blazers acting coach Tiago Splitter and Avdija didn’t sound too concerned about the back injury after the game, but more on that later).
Behind a big-time performance from guard Shaedon Sharpe and Portland’s reestablished depth, the Blazers overpowered the Heat in the second half for a 127-110 win. The victory marked the Blazers’ fourth in a row and gave them an NBA-best 9-2 record during the month of January.
Sharpe went just 1-8 for three points in the first half. Then he ignited in the second half to finish with a team-high 27 points (on 11-21 shooting, 5-9 from deep), seven rebounds and four steals. He broke out the full package to get his points: stepback 3s, pretty midrange fadeaways, the floater, a driving left-hand finger roll, one of his patented sky scraping jams. It was all in the bag on Thursday.
Right after Avdija exited the game, the Blazers went on a big 29-10 run to capture their largest lead of the game at 101-80 with 3:03 left in the third quarter. Sharpe played a featured role during that surge. Then as the Heat threatened to come back in the fourth quarter, Sharpe ripped off 12 points during a 15-5 Blazers run to build the lead back up to 18 and slam the door shut.
“[It was a] hell of a second half,” Splitter said about Sharpe’s performance. “We just tried to give him touches and he made the rest.”
Blazers guard Caleb Love packed a solid second punch with 20 points (on 8-19 shooting), four dimes and four 3-pointers in 34 minutes off the bench. Still on minutes restrictions, guard Jrue Holiday registered 15 points and seven assists while forward Jerami Grant added 12 points — production that feels like a luxury after the veterans missed so much time recently because of injuries. Forward Toumani Camara scored 16 points on great efficiency. Williams provided a jolt of energy on the backline with two tip-ins, 10 rebounds and three blocks, earning his right to put his name in The Box for the evening.
“It’s an honor,” Williams said about the postgame accolade, which the coaching staff gives out after wins to the team’s best defensive player. “It was looking like a foreigners’ box, man, I’m glad I got in there. I’m trying to get in there some more.”
The Blazers shot 20-50 from deep as eight different players knocked down triples. That production was magnified by Miami shooting a woeful 9-45 from long distance. After giving up 63 points in the first half, the Blazers tightened up to hold the Heat to 47 points in the second. Portland picked up the slack defensively, in part, because Splitter challenged his team to play with more intensity at halftime.
“In the first half, we gave them too many 50/50 balls, and they just played harder than us,” Splitter said. “Sometimes it’s not about Xs and Os. You just gotta go there and play harder. And that’s what [our players] did in the second half. They bounced back, and the whole squad was way better, more focused. We rebounded the ball. We pushed the pace. … The energy and the focus was better.”
Avdija Update
As mentioned above, Blazers star forward Deni Avdija exited at the 10:03 mark of the third quarter due to a back injury and left the bench for the remainder of the game. The 6-foot-8 forward missed three games last week after suffering a lower back strain during Portland’s 123-114 loss to the New York Knicks on Jan. 11.
Speaking with reporters in the locker room after Thursday’s game, Avdija said his back “locked up again” in the third quarter after he made a closeout and turned his back sharply on defense. However, Avdija said he was fine, and the flare-up wasn’t as severe as his initial back injury against New York.
Splitter also emphasized after the game that Avdija would be fine. The coach said he made the decision to keep Avdija out the rest of the way, even as his star player tried to remain in the game.
“He felt it a little bit, was a little stiff,” Splitter said. “It was my decision to take him out and kinda like save him from himself. He’s fine. I just didn’t want to go for it.”
“I wanted to stay in because I was warm enough,” Avdija added. “I’m a competitor, I wanted to stay and do what I can to help the team. But [Splitter] does a great job of protecting me, and we still have a lot of season left, and we don’t want to do stuff that it’s gonna affect me after.”
Splitter said he expected Avdija would be able to play in Portland’s home matchup against the Toronto Raptors on Friday. Avdija said he couldn’t make a decision about his status for the game yet, and he would leave it up to the medical staff.
Before exiting the game on Thursday, Avdija produced 20 points (on 6-11 shooting), seven rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes.
