A hot second quarter saw the Lakers build their lead as high as 14, but wins simply don’t come easy for the purple and gold in Portland.
The Trail Blazers’ offense heated up in the second half, allowing them to hand the Lakers their 17th loss in their last 21 trips to Oregon, 118-109.
“I thought we played well enough to win that game,” head coach Luke Walton said. “I don’t think we played well enough to say we deserved to win by any means.”
It was an especially off night for three players who dominated the Lakers’ previous game on Tuesday. In that win over Memphis, Julius Randle had a triple-double while Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell hit six 3-pointers apiece.
This time, they combined to shoot just 15-of-46 from the field and 3-of-17 from 3-point range.
Randle and Russell did provide some highlights, with the former notching 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists while the latter added 22 points. But both had to get their scoring at the foul line, combining to hit 20-of-22 free throws.
Meanwhile, Portland’s backcourt was cooking, as C.J. McCollum (27 points, seven assists) supplied most of the offense while Damian Lillard (21 points, 10 assists) looked perfectly healthy in his return from a five-game absence due to a sprained ankle.
After trailing by three at the end of the first quarter, the Lakers (13-26) immediately went to work in the second, opening the frame with 13 unanswered points capped by three straight triples from Jordan Clarkson, Lou Williams and Brandon Ingram.
The flurry put the Lakers ahead 37-29, and Clarkson scored 13 of his 21 points in that period to take a 62-53 edge into halftime.
But Portland was first to strike after intermission, using a 13-4 run to tie the game at 66. Minutes later, the Blazers regained the lead at 82-81 on a 3-pointer from Evan Turner, who was just starting to get involved.
Walton was surprised by how his team looked like it didn’t have its legs to begin the half.
“Not sure why, but it felt like we came out the first couple plays we ran, and we weren’t cutting hard,” Walton said of the start to the second half. “We weren’t pushing the ball into the spots we wanted the ball in. That’s not OK.”
Midway through the final quarter, Turner scored eight straight points for Portland to grab a 99-98 edge. When the Lakers answered back, the Trail Blazers rolled off 10 consecutive points — including on triples from McCollum and Lillard — to put the Lakers down by six with 3:34 left.
Despite 10 fourth-quarter points from Russell, the Lakers never recovered from shooting just 7-of-20 in the last frame.
Turner was the root of L.A.’s struggles as he entered the period with five points and left with 20.
“We didn’t do a good job as a team of limiting him, overcrowding him, making things complicated,” Randle said. “We made it too easy for him.”
Turner wasn’t the only one to find his rhythm for the home team, as Portland shot 53.1 percent from the field and tallied 29 assists to beat the Lakers for a franchise-record ninth straight game.
Notes
Brandon Ingram started at small forward for Luol Deng (biceps tendonitis) and scored 10 points in the first half but took only one shot in the second. … Russell missed all eight of his 3-point attempts. …Mason Plumlee had 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists for Portland. … An audience of 19,403 sold out Moda Center.