Lillard and Covington took charges on Porter, Jr. The Blazers came out in the third ready to go. Lillard had 18 points at the half, Porter, Jr. When McCollum hit a running bank shot at the buzzer, the Blazers trailed 65-62.a minor miracle, all things considered. Then it got even better, as Portland started forcing turnovers and converting on the break. Improbably, the Blazers got the margin within 6 with 2:00 left. Powell and McCollum helped with several buckets. Damian Lillard came alive and spurred a 14-0 run. When they weren’t watching the ball clank and roll off the hoop, they were turning it over before they even got there. Before you could say, “Wha hoppened?” Portland was down 20. The Blazers kept firing threes of their own. The Nuggets kept raining threes on Portland’s second unit, who looked helpless to stop them, pained even to respond. McCollum struck back with a couple buckets, but no single Blazer was going to be enough to match Denver’s attack. He looked seven feet taller than anybody guarding him, converting without concern. opened the second quarter stroking a three, illustrating Portland’s defensive issues and Denver’s relaxed ease. The Nuggets ended up hitting 7 threes in the period, Portland only 2. Nikola Jokic, Facu Campazzo, Michael Porter, Jr., everybody was scoring. By that time Denver was like butter on a roll. They didn’t make a real bucket until the clock read 6:25, when Robert Covington got loose in the lane. Their second score came on a goaltend of a Norman Powell layup. The Blazers finally got their first point at the 7:53 mark on a free throw after an Illegal Defense call on Denver. As the Blazers bricked their first 8 shots, the Nuggets opened up a 10-0 lead. Jusuf Nurkic went scoreless on three fairly makeable conversions. Unfortunately the Blazers were ice cold on offense, missing easy shots and hard. Portland forced him to go away from the basket instead of towards it once he received the ball. Denver tried to run the offense through Aaron Gordon but he couldn’t deliver. The Blazers opened the game with a new wrinkle: stiff defense! They made the Nuggets waste dribbles and passes. But Lillard’s teammates came up woefully short, missing rotations and easy scoring plays in the double-OT thriller, leaving the Blazers down 147-140 in the game, 2-3 in the best-of-seven series. When the smoke cleared, Lillard had the best performance in Blazers playoffs history with 55 points on 17-24 shooting, an NBA record 12-17 from distance, with 10 assists. Portland ate away at the increasingly-complacent Nuggets, then Damian Lillard went nuclear, posting an amazing performance culminating in 17 straight points over two overtimes.a feat impossible to describe. Denver’s mission to capture advantage in the series seemed secure.īut a funny thing happened on the way to the rout. With defense as porous as a broken screen door and offense as dry as the Sahara, the Blazers dug themselves a 20-point deficit by the second period. 24.Needing a win, the Portland Trail Blazers came out with their pants full of soup in Game 5 of their series against the Denver Nuggets. 17 and Stephen Curry and the Warriors on ESPN on Nov. 14, Domantas Sabonis and the Kings on ESPN on Nov. From there, the Spurs will face Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder on TNT on Nov. The Spurs - who are in a group with the Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder - open group play on Nov. Those four group-stage games - which will consist of two home and two road games for each team - will take place across seven dates in November: four Fridays (the 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th), and three Tuesdays (the 14th, 21st and 28th), with the league once again having no games scheduled on Election Day (Tuesday, Nov. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama- are the only team that has more than two of its four group-play games on ESPN and TNT.Īll 30 NBA teams play four games - all part of their regular 82-game schedule - against conference opponents they were grouped together with when the league officially announced the new event last month during summer league in Las Vegas. The league unveiled the group-play schedule for its inaugural in-season tournament Tuesday afternoon on ESPN's "NBA Today," and the San Antonio Spurs - led by No. The NBA is using its new tournament to showcase its newest star.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |