The Portland Trail Blazers overcame a 16-point deficit in the second half and got 29 points from CJ McCollum to win 107-106 at San Antonio on Friday night while playing without Damian Lillard.
The Spurs led 106-105 with 27 seconds remaining when Portland forward Robert Covington stole the ball from Lonnie Walker IV in the backcourt. Covington went down court to the left and then passed to a trailing Norman Powell, who went up for a layup but had the ball touched while it was on the rim by Spurs center Jakob Poeltl. The shot went in anyway and Poeltl was called for goaltending, giving the Blazers a 107-106 lead with 22.8 seconds left.
On the Spurs’ final possession, they got off three shots. First, DeMar DeRozan shot a baseline jumper that missed, but the rebound got batted around until the ball ended up in the hands of Rudy Gay, who missed a deep three. The ball bounced high off the rim and was batted by Poeltl toward the basket but missed at the buzzer.
With Lillard out nursing a hamstring injury — his status for Sunday at Charlotte is unknown — the Blazers needed others to pick up the scoring slack. Powell scored 22.
Simons came off the bench to score 16.
“When you have a win like this on the road and you come from 16 down, I think you have to have a lot of contributions from different people,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said.
WHAT IT MEANS
The sixth-place Blazers (32-23) picked up a little bit of ground on the fourth-place Los Angeles Lakers (34-22) who lead them by 1 1/2 games in the Western Conference standings. Fourth-place Denver (36-20) won 129-99 at Houston.
“I think for us it’s just about taking care of business with 17 games left,” McCollum said. “Each game is going to be important for us. Obviously, we don’t want to play in the play-in game, so we’ve got to continue to try and separate from the seven seed.”
The seventh-place team is Dallas (30-24 entering Friday).
IT WAS OVER WHEN
The Spurs went on an early run to go up 27-17 with 3:57 remaining in the first quarter. But the Blazers rallied back, scoring the final five points of the quarter. McCollum hit a three and then Carmelo Anthony made an 18-foot jumper at the buzzer to trim the Spurs’ lead to 31-28 at the end of the first quarter.
The Blazers got 12 points from McCollum in the quarter and shot 46.5%. However, the Spurs shot 58.3%.
Simons hit a three and then Anthony made a jumper to tie the game at 33-33. A little later, Simons made another three to give the Blazers the lead at 38-35.
The Spurs dominated the final few minutes of the quarter to lead 57-48 at halftime.
The Spurs went up 66-50 early in the third quarter and led 77-62 with 4:56 remaining. It looked like San Antonio would run away with the game, but the Blazers prevented that from happening by ending the quarter with a 21-8 stretch that trimmed their deficit to 85-83 entering the fourth quarter.
Stotts credited the play of Simons, Anthony and Enes Kanter for getting the team out of a big hole in the third quarter.
“They got us back into the game with a little bit of everything,” Stotts said. “With their shot-making, with their rebounds. We just started playing a lot better in the third quarter.”
McCollum, who scored 14 points in the first half, had nine in the third quarter. Powell added seven.
The Blazers managed to take an 87-85 lead, but the Spurs came back and led 92-87. That led to Powell making a three and then Covington also hit a three and just like that, the Blazers led 93-92.
Simons stole the ball and went down the court for a powerful dunk that made the score 95-95 with 5:12 remaining in the game.
Jusuf Nurkic, following a defensive stop, scored on a drive to the hoop to give the Blazers a 97-95 lead, but the Spurs answered with two baskets from DeRozan to take a 99-97 lead. Portland called a timeout with 3:34 on the clock.
The game sat at 101-101 when Derrick White hit a three with just over two minutes remaining to make the score 104-101.
That led to the wild final seconds.
“To get a win without Dame was very important,” Stotts said. “The way we came back down 16 was important. To find a way to finish a game was important. So, I think there were a lot of positives to take from this game.”
SHOWED UP AND SHOWED OUT
Powell made 8 of 17 shots to reach 22 points and also had four assists.
McCollum made 13 of 26 shots and led the team in scoring and with six assists. Kanter had 10 points and 13 rebounds in 26 minutes.
Simons made 5 of 10 shots (4 of 8 on threes) in 30 minutes.
“He made big shots, timely shots, to give us some juice,” Powell said of Simons.
Dejounte Murray had a triple-double for the Spurs with 13 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds.
Portland’s bench outscored San Antonio’s 39-29.
SHOWED UP AND FIZZLED
Derrick Jones Jr. started in place of Lillard but struggled, missing both of his shot attempts and finishing scoreless in 19 minutes.
Patty Mills went 0 of 6 from the field for the Spurs, finishing with zero points and three assists.
The Spurs scored 62 points in the paint, compared with 42 for the Blazers.
NEXT UP (Blazers schedule)
The Blazers continue their trip at 4 p.m. Sunday at Charlotte (27-28). The Hornets lost 130-115 at the Brooklyn Nets (38-18).
— Aaron Fentress | [email protected] | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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