Ever since their restart training camp, the Trail Blazers have talked about needing to play ever game like it was a playoff game. That approach ultimately helped Portland go 6-2 to secure the eight-seed and now, their first actual playoff win of 2020.
The Trail Blazers jumped out to an early double-digit lead on the one-seed Los Angeles Lakers, lost the lead by the half and trailed by as many as six in the fourth quarter before rallying to come away with a 100-93 victory in Game 1 of the one-eight Western Conference playoff matchup Tuesday night at AdventHeath Arena on the grounds of the Walt Disney World Resort outside of Orlando.
“Everybody was in our gym every day once they opened up our facility,” said Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard. “I saw everybody there. So we was watching film, we was talking, we were together. And I think every game we’ve played since we’ve been here has been a playoff game. So that prepared us for a game like this one.”
The Trail Blazers now lead the first-round, best-of-seven series 1-0.
“It’s first to four,” said CJ McCollum. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, got a lot of things we can tighten up on. We defended extremely well but we still gave up some easy baskets, put guys on the free throw line a lot. There’s somethings we can tighten up.”
While Trail Blazers had no choice but to play extended minutes in the eight “seeding” games and the play-in versus the Grizzlies in order to qualify for their seventh-straight postseason, that trial-by-fire seemed to give Portland an early advantage against a Lakers team that had little to play for in their regular season restart. The Trail Blazers scored the first five points of the game and led by as many as 16 points in the first quarter thanks in large part to 10 points and 10 rebounds from Jusuf Nurkic in the first 10 minutes of the game and 15 points from restart MVP Damian Lillard.
However, such leads rarely last in the NBA, especially against a team like the Lakers featuring a player like LeBron James.
After shooting 52 percent from the field and 33 percent from three in the first quarter, the Trail Blazers went ice cold in the second. Portland went just 3-of-19 from the field in the second quarter and 2-of-8 from three, and had they not made 13 free throws, they would have seen their entire lead collapse rather than heading into the intermission with a slim 57-56 advantage.
But rather than being overwhelmed in the third quarter, which has happened on so many occasions this season, Portland stiffened up to start the second half. CJ McCollum, who went 2-of-8 from the field for just five points in the first half, found his stroke in the third quarter, going 4-of-7 from the field to score 11 of the Trail Blazers 21 points in the third.
And while 21 points in a quarter would typically be a negative for a team like Portland, Los Angeles only putting up 19 while shooting 36 percent from the field and going a paltry 1-of-8 from three allowed the Trail Blazes to take aa 78-75 lead into the fourth and final quarter.
That lead wouldn’t last long into the fourth, with Kyle Kuzma making a three, a rarity for any L.A player Tuesday night, to tie the game at 78-78. Kuzma would ultimately lead a 9-0 run for the Lakers to give the top seed in the West a 87-81 lead with 7:21 to play, and considering the playoff history between the two teams, one imagines Portland fans were girding themselves for yet another disappointment.
Those Trail Blazers teams of yore did not have Damian Lillard.
After a McCollum three got Portland to within three, the 6-3 point guard in his eighth season out or Weber State pulled up from 30 feet to tie the game at 87-87 with 5:46 to play. A little over two minutes later, he converted from 36 feet to give the Blazers a three-point lead.
Carmelo Anthony pitched in another clutch three, which has become standard late-game fare for the 36 year old, and Gary Trent Jr., who hit the side of the backboard twice attempting corner threes Tuesday night, made a triple to give the Blazers a 98-93 lead with 1:15 to play.
The Lakers, who didn’t seem especially concerned about scoring quickly despite being down two possessions, would close the game out by missing three three-pointers, with Lillard finding Nurkic with 16 seconds to play for a dunk sealed the win for the “road” team.
“It’s a great effort by our team,” said Lillard. “From the start of the game I thought we came out with the level of focus of energy that we needed to against the best team in the league. We defended, we played together, I thought we shared the ball and we didn’t have any major lulls. Obviously they made some runs -- it’s a game of runs -- but when it got down the stretch I think we kept our heads down, we kept working. We made the plays on both ends to be able to pull out a win.”
Lillard led the Trail Blazers with 34 points to go with five rebounds, five assists and a block in 43 minutes. McCollum finished with 21 points, five rebounds and a steal in 41 minutes.
Nurkić went just 4-of-11 from the field but went 7-of-9 from the line on the way to a 16-point, 15-rebound performance in 33 minutes. More importantly he, along with Hassan Whiteside and Wenyen Gabriel, who started in place of Zach Collins (left ankle inflammation), held Lakers power forward Anthony Davis to an 8-of-24 shooting night.
Anthony contributed a double-double with 10 points, 10 rebounds in 38 minutes.
LeBron James went 9-of-20 from the field for 23 points to go with 16 assists and 17 rebounds for the playoff triple-double. Kuzma finished with 14 points off the bench.
Next up, the Trail Blazers have a day off before facing the Lakers in Game 2 Thursday night at the ESPN Wide World of Sports campus.
“We should be proud that we pulled the first one out, it takes a lot of work to do it, but I think you just got to move on to the next one,” said Lillard. “We didn’t have some big discussion like ‘Ah, we haven’t done anything’ because we haven’t, we won a game. But we smart enough to know it’s like, we won the game, that’s a good thing, now we’ve got to prepare for the next one. We not just overly trying to act like we not proud of what we did, because we are, but we also not gonna rest in it and pat ourselves on the back. We gonna try to figure out the things we didn’t do well that we could do better next game and try to give ourselves a chance to win the next game.”
Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.