Portland shot the fourth-best mark in the National Basketball Association at 37% during the regular season, but three games into the postseason, the Blazers have shot just 25.9% from behind the arc in their first-round series versus the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers were up 2-1 in the first-round playoff series against the Blazers.
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“Yeah, I mean, we’re trapping, we’re doing a lot of things”, he said. “So I wanted to come out and leave it all out there, be aggressive at the offensive end and help on the defensive end”.
Jamal Crawford did his best to keep his team in the game, scoring several times on tough midrange jumpers.
Westbrook racked up 36 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists Monday, shooting 13-for-23 from the floor. The Blazers’ biggest lead in the first two games was two points. Despite an impressive body of work at the Moda Center, though, Terry Stotts’ group won’t get the benefit of the doubt from oddsmakers. Online sports book Bovada.lv positions Los Angeles as a 2-point favorite in Game 3. With 55.8 seconds remaining, Maurice Harkless put back a miss by McCollum to give Portland a five-point lead. Both of these teams know each other well by this point. Griffin’s fatigue has been on full display, and it has led to positive results for the Trail Blazers. “I expect them to do that at home”.
The Thunder took the series in five games and will next face the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference matchup.
The Portland backcourt, the Clippers’ biggest challenge heading into the series, was virtually unguardable.
The Blazers are trying to become the first team to overcome a 2-0 deficit since Memphis came back against the Clippers in the first round in 2013. That’s not exactly how things ended up, as the Clippers now find themselves tied 2-2 with the Trail Blazers. “Anything can happen, as it showed a year ago against Houston (when the Clippers squandered a 3-1 lead)”. Those concerns were valid, too – Walker shot just 30.5 percent from behind the 3-point line in 2015, and attempted about 4.5 per game on top of it.
They were able to escape in a day of the process and the CJ McCollum celebration but Saturday morning, they felt the urgency.
“My job as a coach is to figure out a way of getting us up and ready for Game 5”, he said. “We really asserted ourselves”. That’s what makes this Portland team risky – the Blazers have played well defensively all series long. Portland led 49-40 at the half.
Adding insult to injury, Clippers guard J.J. Redick told reporters his left heel “would be an issue” through the remainder of the playoffs.
The Clippers’ Chris Paul is a good rebounding guard and is averaging 5.0 in the playoffs.
Erik Gundersen is the Trail Blazers beat reporter for The Columbian. The Blazers also honored broadcaster Joe Becker, who is retiring after 32 years at Portland’s KGW TV. “He’s the guy that gets them going and can single-handedly change the game”. They played hard so they deserve to win the game.
From there, the Blazers held on for an eight-point victory.
Lillard called him a monster.
Plumlee was brought to the podium to take questions from the media for the first time in his career.
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“It’s so easy when you lose, it’s focus; that’s the easy way”, Doc Rivers said after the loss, per Robert Morales of the Los Angeles Daily News.
