The Portland Trail Blazers overcame a weak shooting performance on threes and a 41-point first quarter from Toronto to beat the Raptors 122-117 on Sunday in Tampa, Florida.
The Blazers held the Raptors to 10 points in the third quarter to push ahead after trailing at halftime, and then closed the game in the fourth quarter with clutch plays from CJ McCollum, who scored seven points in under 90 seconds late to help seal the victory.
The Blazers’ Norman Powell and Toronto’s Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood, involved in a three-player trade on Thursday, failed to deliver big games on a night when each faced their former team.
Powell finished with 13 points on 3 of 6 shooting. Trent scored six. Hood came off the bench to score 13, with eight coming in the first quarter.
The Blazers went with a three-guard starting lineup of Powell, Damian Lillard and McCollum to take advantage of the trio’s scoring potency. But all three had subpar nights by their standards, especially on threes.
Lillard made 2 of 7, McCollum made 1 of 7 and Powell made 1 of 2. As a team, Portland made just 10 of 34 threes (29.4%).
Lillard finished with 22 points and 11 assists after shooting 7 of 21 from the field.
Despite the lack of combined offensive fireworks, Lillard said he liked how the trio worked together in their first time out.
“It was good to have him out there knowing that it’s another guy that can knock down open shots, put it on the floor and get to the rim and finish,” Lillard said. “And a guy that really helps our defense. It was fun to be out there with him.”
Still, Portland got its third win on this three-game road trip.
WHAT IT MEANS
The Blazers (28-18) remained tied for fifth place in the Western Conference with Denver (28-18). The Nuggets on Sunday won 126-102 over Atlanta (23-23).
“Road wins, home wins, whatever it is, the way things are in the West, everything’s bunched up, you’ve got to get the wins where you can,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said.
IT WAS OVER WHEN
The Blazers’ three-guard attack led the Blazers to 29.4% shooting on threes in the first half, while Hood came off the bench for Toronto to score 11 and his team made 10 of 22 threes (45.5%).
Toronto (18-28) led 74-68 at halftime. When Pascal Siakam scored inside with 6:27 remaining in the third quarter, the Raptors led 82-75. Then the Blazers went on 14-0 run that included a Rodney Covington three, a deep three from Lillard, a steal and dunk from Powell, a Lillard drive and then an Enes Kanter score inside. Covington blocked two shots during the run that left Portland up 89-82.
The Blazers led 91-84 at the end of the third quarter that they won 23-10, holding the Raptors to 4 of 22 shooting.
“I was really proud of our defense in the third quarter,” Stotts said.
Portland led 108-97 with 7:53 to go in the game before the Raptors managed to work their way back to within 111-107 with 3:29 remaining after Chris Boucher (Oregon) made two out of three free throws.
The Blazers led 115-111 with under a minute remaining when McCollum drove to the lane and scored on a floater as he was fouled. He made the free throw to give the Blazers a 118-111 lead with 44.4 seconds remaining.
From there, the Raptors kept things interesting, but the Blazers held on, icing the game with two free throws from Lillard to set the final score with 4.8 seconds left.
LILLARD TIME OFF
Lillard sat out the team’s win Friday at Orlando because of a knee bruise, but he had several ailments that benefited from not playing.
“I think the two days that I had really helped,” Lillard said. “I felt good moving around out there. Better than I’ve felt probably the last seven or eight games.”
Lillard said he is dealing with a slight injury to his right hand suffered against New Orleans on March 18.
“Other than that, I feel pretty good, my energy was good, my wind was good, and we got another win,” Lillard said.
NURKIC GAME 2
Center Jusuf Nurkic appeared in his second game since returning from a broken wrist and in 19 minutes scored 10 points and had four rebounds. He made 4 of 7 shots and went 1 of 2 on threes.
SHOWED UP AND SHOWED OUT
Derrick Jones Jr. came off the bench with Powell starting and had one of his best games of the season. Jones made 7 of 9 shots and scored 16 points in 21 minutes. Covington had 13 points and 10 rebounds while adding two assists, two steals and four blocked shots.
“They had a great impact on the game,” Lillard said about both Covington and Jones.
Siakam had 24 points and eight rebounds for Toronto. Boucher came off the bench to score 16 points on 6 of 7 shooting.
SHOWED UP AND FIZZLED
Carmelo Anthony went 4 of 12 from the field for eight points in 28 minutes.
Trent struggled in his second game with the Raptors, just as he did in his first on Friday. Trent made 2 of 10 shots and 1 of 5 threes to finish with six points.
NEXT UP (Blazers schedule)
The Blazers close out their four-game trip Wednesday at Detroit (12-33).
— Aaron Fentress | [email protected] | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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