The Portland Trail Blazers gave another tantalizing glimpse of their potential tonight, as CJ McCollum torched the New Orleans Pelicans, carrying the Blazers to a fairly easy victory. It was Portland’s 15th straight home-opening victory, surpassing Boston’s record of 14 (1979-92). After all, the Blazers traded away or lost to free agency all of their starters but Damian Lillard following last season’s division title. Blazers third-year guard C.J. McCollum did his best impression of Stephen Curry – who had 40 points vs. the Pelicans on Tuesday – by compiling a huge scoring night, finishing with a career-best 37 points. We fought like insane and competed the way we should have in the first half.
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“He had an awesome game”, said New Orleans guard Eric Gordon, who scored 20 points. New Orleans was without G Tyreke Evans (knee), G Norris Cole (ankle), F Luke Babbitt (hamstring) and C Omer Asik (calf). He followed that with a layup to cut the lead to 11. Dallas led by as many as 28 points in the final quarter.
To be sure, the Pelicans were at a disadvantage with just 10 healthy players on the second night of a road back-to-back following a contest that ended after 10:30 p.m. the previous day.
The realist in me says this is going to be a long season in Portland.
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The Nuggets were up by nine points with about 9 minutes remaining when they used a 6-0 run – with four points from rookie Emmanuel Mudiay – to extend the lead to 85-72 and send fans streaming to the exits. They scored on their first five possessions, pulling to within 13 points on Davis’ back-to-back three-pointers with 7 minutes left. Portland was 14-of-26, including 6-of-13 (.462) from 3-point range. He finished with 12 points and six assists. The suspension came when he made what the National Basketball Association called unnecessary contact with his forearm to the neck area of Golden State’s Andre Iguodala in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals where Houston was eliminated.
