PORTLAND -- The Portland Trail Blazers have had a difficult time winning close games during a five-game losing streak. Luckily, they didn’t have to worry about that issue Saturday night.
The Trail Blazers led by as many as 26 points in the fourth quarter and were able to rest their starters and regular rotation players for the final five minutes in a 136-119 victory versus the Dallas Mavericks in front of a crowd of 19,393 Saturday night at Moda Center.
“It felt great. When you’re trying to fight for a win and you get in that type of funk, it seems like it’s never going to end, but you’ve got to keep pushing,” said Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard. “When your mind is right and you pushing, everybody is pulling the rope in the same direction, you find your way to where you need to get to. Sometimes, a lot of times, all it takes is one. We got a good win against a good team and there’s still a lot of stuff that we could have done better.”
The Trail Blazers are now 20-22 overall and 10-8 at home this season. The victory ends a five-game skid, Portland’s longest of the season thus far, and is their first victory versus a team with a winning record in more than a month.
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“We broke through, we played so much better,” said head coach Chauncey Billups. “I thought we were really, really aggressive defensively and it just kind of fueled us.”
While no losing streak is pleasant, Portland’s was especially annoying considering they led in the fourth quarter in four of those five losses. So if the Trail Blazers were going to get back onto the winning side of things Saturday night against a Mavericks team that had already bested Portland twice and was coming off an overtime victory versus the Lakers in Los Angeles, they almost certainly needed to do so emphatically.
Which they did.
The first step was trying just about anything to slow down Mavericks point guard and MVP candidate Luka Doncic. Portland's defensive game plan focused on getting the ball out of Doncic’s hands, even if it meant open looks for his teammates. And it worked, as Reggie Bullock and Spencer Dinwiddie posted 24 and 25 points, respectively, on ridiculously high shooting percentages, though Doncic finished with just 15 points, less than half of what he’s averaging per game this season.
“What you want to do is win the game,” said Lillard. “First two (meetings), Luka had great games and they beat us, so I think you’ve just got to get to a point where you say ‘Alright, if we gonna lose tonight, it’s not going to be to him. We not going to let him have his way.’ Tonight, they did hit a lot of threes, it seemed like every other possession it was like ‘Dang, we didn’t get to a guy on the line and he hit a three.’ But we was also up by 20 points.”
On the other end, every Portland starter finished in double figures in scoring, and the bench, which has provided little in terms of scoring as of late, came up with 30 points. The open shots they had missed during much of their losing streak fell Saturday night, with the team shooting 56 percent from the field, 42 percent from three and 96 percent from the line.
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But maybe nothing was more important for getting Portland out of the funk they’ve been in over nearly the last two weeks than taking care of the ball. After averaging 17.6 turnovers per game during their five-game skid, the Trail Blazers turned the ball over just nine times in Saturday’s win -- and two of those came once the game was turned over to the end of the bench.
“I just thought we didn’t think so much, we just played the game with good flow, good rhythm,” said Lillard. “We made the right plays, we made those plays on time, we played with good pace so it wasn’t like we were playing stuck or playing in crowd and stuff like that. I think the rhythm and flow to the game and the pace of the game just was in our favor, so the plays to be made were more clear, the openings were more clear. When it’s that way, it easier to take care of the ball, and I just thought we did a good job of that.”
With the defense minimizing Doncic’s impact, the offense converting more than half of their attempts and the team taking care of the ball, the Blazers were finally able get a comfortable win against a good team on their home floor, something that has happened far too infrequently as of late.
Portland was led by Lillard, who passed Glen Rice for 75th and tied Julius Irving for 74th all-time in scoring with 36 points on 11-of-20 shooting from the field. And with 10 assists, he passed Clyde Drexler to move into second in franchise history in assists with 4,939.
“It’s the year of passing up Clyde,” said Lillard, who passed the Hall of Famer for the most points in franchise history a few weeks ago. “I’ve been here 11 seasons and I’ve played with the ball in my hands a lot, so I’m going to score a lot of points and I’m going to have a lot of assists. It’s always an honor to move up that list, especially to pass up such a great player. I try to show up and do what I do every night. I try to make the right plays, I attack and score the ball and try to win and that’s it. I think when you prepare and you’re consistent at that and you’re able to sustain it over this long of a time, you bound to start passing people up.”
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Jusuf Nurkic also had a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds to go with three assists and a steal in 22 minutes. Anfernee Simons went for 21 points, five assists and four rebounds in 29 minutes. Jerami Grant added 16 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block while Josh Hart rounded out the starters with 11 points, six assists and four rebounds in 27 minutes.
Gary Payton II looked ever bit like the defensive jack-of-all-trades he was billed as when he signed with Portland as a free agent, posting 10 points, four steals, two assists and two rebounds while committing five fouls in 15 minutes. Shaedon Sharpe contributed 12 points of the bench.
Next up, the Trail Blazers will host the Mavericks yet again Sunday night in the second game of a back-to-back and the fourth and final contest between the two teams this season. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.