For most fans and probably a good segment of the players, Portland’s 137-105 blowout victory versus Golden State at the Moda Center on February 19 was the high-water mark of the 2015-16 season. Lead by 51 points from Damian Lillard, which was the first time the 6-3 guard out of Weber State hit the half century mark in scoring, the Trail Blazers jumped all over the defending NBA champs in the first game for either team after the 2016 All-Star break, building a 19-point lead in the first half before coasting to a 32-point victory. It was just the fifth time all season that a team managed to best the Warriors, something only one team, the Lakers, have done since then.
But while the Warriors might be a bit more motivated for Friday night’s game due to the way the last meeting went, it’s hard to imagine a team that has lost just six times all season, and not once on their home court, is going to do much adjusting for a team three games above .500.
“I think they’ve been pretty consistent, they’ve only lost six times,” said Lillard of the Warriors. “I think it’s safe to say they’re going to be the same team that they’ve been all year. That night we just played really well. Coming off All-Star break everybody usually comes back with a little bit of rust. That night was just our night. I’m sure that they probably had a little bit of a sour taste in they mouth about how it happened. But at this point we expect everybody’s best and they should expect ours, too.”
While the Trail Blazers won the most recent matchup, the Warriors handled Portland 128-108 in the first meeting of the season series back on January 8 and swept the 2014-15 season series 3-0, which might have been why some of Golden State’s players seemed to write off the loss as a fluke (and to be fair, considering their record, every loss this season fits the definition of a fluke). But all of the Warriors losses this season have come against teams well behind them in the league standings, so it stands to reason that defeating Golden State this year does take a bit of luck.
“It’s the NBA, nobody is above getting beat, nobody is above getting blown out,” said Lillard. “It happens to the best, it happens to the worst. It’s the best league in the world. Obviously (Golden State) will come back and want to have a different result, but anything can happen. We played well that night and we were the better team that night. That can change on any given night.”
What probably can’t change, at least if the Trail Blazers are to have a chance of handing the Warriors their first home loss this season, is the play of Lillard. The point guard in his fourth season is averaging 33.2 points per game on 48 percent shooting from the field and 42 percent shooting from three since the All-Star break, and they’ll need him to have the same kind of performance in Friday night’s as he had in the last game versus Golden State in order to be the first team to best the reigning champs twice this season.
“The first game we played them they got the best of us and I feel like the second game we got the best of them,” said Allen Crabbe. “Obviously they’re going to change some things up that we did really good, but if we have another 50-point performance from Dame then I’m pretty sure we’ll be in another good spot to win the game.”