The Portland Trail Blazers were looking to finish off a four-game road trip with a 3-1 record while visiting the Oklahoma City Thunder. This game was a defensive battle most of the way. However, scoring exploded in the fourth quarter. At the end of that, Portland had a 102-99 win, and a 3-1 road trip.
Portland Trail Blazers Beat Oklahoma City Thunder
Second Game Without Zach Collins
Monday’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs was the first game since Zach Collins dislocated his shoulder. Anthony Tolliver has started the last two games in his place. In that loss to the Spurs, Tolliver had his best game as a Blazer. However, that’s not saying much. In that game, he went 1/4 shooting for five points and ten rebounds.
His performance in this game wasn’t anything special. With that said, he did go 2/4 from three for six points, and he grabbed five rebounds. Nobody should expect much out of Tolliver.
However, he was brought to Portland to stretch the floor. What Tolliver hasn’t done so far is stretch the floor. Coming into this game, he was only 1/8.
If Tolliver is going to start shooting the ball better, it will make it easier to sustain the loss of Collins for the time being.
Damian Lillard as a Distributor
One thing that’s been very noticeable this season is Damian Lillard is attempting to be a distributor, especially early in games.
Lillard generally plays the whole first quarter sans foul trouble. And so far this season he has often finished with only around four or five points in the first quarter, but he’ll have three or four assists at that time.
In this game, he finished with a season-high 13 assists. Lillard is also working on a career-high assist/turnover ratio, granted it’s only five games into the season.
However, the biggest play of the game was not a shot by Lillard, as is the usual, but it was an assist.
Rodney Hood had his worst shooting night of the young season, but with him in the corner having a bad shooting night, Lillard drove and hit him with a perfect pass right in his shooting pocket. Hood drilled it and gave Portland a 100-95 lead with 30.3 seconds left.
Hood elevates, drills the clutch triple
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Before the season, Lillard was voted by the league’s General Managers as the best leader in the league. It’s not hard to see why that was the case given the amount of trust he will show in teammates.
This is also important in the long-term. Portland brought in a lot of new role players this season, and when the leader of your team is willing to pass the ball to your third-scoring option in the starting lineup with only a two-point lead and less than a minute left on the road, goes a long way in giving the rest of the team confidence.
Perimeter Defense Improving
In the first few games of the season, Portland was torched from the three-point line.
However, in the last two games, Portland has allowed San Antonio and Oklahoma City to go a combined 11/49 (22.4-percent) from three.
Of course, the actual level of the perimeter defense is likely somewhere between what they gave up the first few games and what they’ve allowed the last two games.
Kent Bazemore has been a significant addition on the defensive end, but as a team, it’ll be important for Portland to hold teams to a low percentage from distance. If they can do that, they’ll win a lot of games because of the way they can score.
Portland Trail Blazers Beat Oklahoma City Thunder: Up Next
As mentioned, Portland was able to finish this road trip with a 3-1 record. That’s good for any road trip, let alone a four-game road trip in the first five games of the season. It’s also notable that the only game Portland lost was on a back-to-back, and it was a narrow loss in the game to the Spurs.
Now, Portland will travel home to play a game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday Night.
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