HOUSTON -- The Trail Blazers started a five-game road trip off Thursday night with a 126-109 loss to the Rockets at the Toyota Center in front of an announced crowd of 15,550. The Trail Blazers are now 7-6 for the year and 4-4 on the road this season.
"We kind of suck right now," said Damian Lillard. "We're usually a pretty good offensive team, we've been bad on offense and bad on defense. We're trying hard but we're not always making the smartest plays, sometimes letting the offensive end effect the defensive end. It's not good enough. We're not very good right now."If nothing else, Trail Blazers got off to a much better start Thursday night versus the Rockets than they did Tuesday versus the Bulls, jumping out to a quick 6-0 lead. CJ McCollum in particular came out playing well, going a perfect 5-of-5 from the field for 11 first-quarter points.
"We were getting beat on the defensive end and we were trying hard but it just seemed like it wasn't going our way," said Lillard. "Usually when things like this happen you've got to just keep fighting and stay with it. It's important for our team to stay together and I think that's one of the biggest strengths of our team is we stay together."Portland would rally to get back into the game early in the second quarter, using a 13-5 run to start the quarter while cutting Houston’s lead to 46-42. The Rockets held a narrow lead for almost the entirety of the quarter until the Trail Blazers scored the last seven points of the half to tie the game at 62-62 at the intermission.
"You've got to work hard, obviously, but you've got to work smart, too," said Maurice Harkless of Portland's season-long defensive issues. "You can't just be out there playing wild and expect to get stops, that's not how it is. It's attention to detail, the gameplan, knowing what coverages we're in. We've got to do a better job executing."
"Just something different," said Terry Stotts of his decision to start Crabbe. "I thought obviously the way they play, I thought it was a better matchup, at least for the starters. I didn't know how the game would play out but I thought matching up with them at the beginning would be better."
The Rockets were led by Harden, who continued his early-season, MVP-caliber performance with a triple-double of 26 points, 14 assists and 12 rebounds in 31 minutes.
"James Harden played an outstanding game," said Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. "You look at the first and third quarters, he dominated the game in those two quarters. We made our run in the second quarter with him out of the game. I was glad we came back from 15 to tie it up at halftime but they're very good at what they do and Harden is a big key to that."Next up, the Trail Blazers head east to New Orleans to face the Pelicans at Smoothie King Arena Friday night with hopes of avoiding what would be their first three-game losing streak of the season.
"I know we're going to be fine, but it's just frustrating for us to be doing the same things, hurting ourselves in the same ways, for all of us, myself included," said Lillard. "We try hard as a group, we've just got to be better. We've got to stay with it."
Tipoff is scheduled 5 pm on CSNNW and 620 AM.