The Portland Trail Blazers narrowly avoided a crisis at the start of the season, managing to beat the Houston Rockets 128-126 in overtime at Moda Center.
Things were bad at first, before the Blazers started to find their shot in the second half. Damian Lillard did most of his damage before the break, scoring 21 of his 32 points in the first half. Then Portland mounted CJ McCollum’s hot hand, which led the team to victory with 44 points, including a career record with 9 trios and 8 assists.
McCollum’s counterpart almost stole the show. James Harden, who may be heavily rethinking his list of favorite trade destinations after his visit to Rose City, scored 44 points, gave 17 assists and had the bucket of approval at the end of overtime that almost sealed the pissed off before McCollum pierced an angle meters with 6.9 seconds remaining.
The familiar themes of Wednesday’s disastrous opening against Utah surfaced earlier: poor perimeter defense; poor shot and a general lack of a unified identity. The Blazers didn’t look well since the pre-season opening against Sacramento and every minute that dragged on seemed like a desperate expectation for the other shoe to fall … and it just didn’t. It is true that there are only two games left for the season, but Portland not only seems slow, but also a terrible basketball team.
Among the shortcomings, Terry Stotts is tasked with correcting sooner or later, near the top of the list should be finding consistent offenses from anyone not named Lillard or McColllum. Together, the duo combined for almost two⁄3 of the Blazers’ 102 attempts, which is by no means sustainable. This list has been heralded as one of the most profound that Portland has had in recent memory, but the real product so far is work in progress. Carmelo Anthony has been essentially impossible to play, shooting just 2-9 from the field in 20 minutes, and especially defensively close to Enes Kanter, where the pair had a worse team more / less than -16 and -8, respectively.
At the other end of the spectrum, Robert Covington (+16) finally got his first bucket as a Blazer at the start of the third quarter and finished with just 9 points, after scoring just one point in his debut. I’m not even sure if this is entirely his fault, since his presence in the attack has only been opportunistic – a far cry from what many expected from Neil Olshey’s award-winning out-of-season acquisition.
It is easy to fall into the old saying “Never apologize for a victory”, but it is difficult to find many good points in this game that do not come with a red flag. Portland held Houston just 11-35 beyond the arc, but also allowed them to shoot almost 50% overall and hit 32 free throws. At first, it looked like Kanter and Jusuf Nurkic would be able to exploit their considerable advantage in absolute body mass over the small rockets, but it was the long, lean Christian Wood who ended up impressing the most, scoring 31 points and 13 rebounds.
There’s a lot to unpack – stay tuned for the extended recap.
Points Box
What is the next
The Blazers will have a day off before heading south to face the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night at 7pm.