A million monkeys typing for a million years will eventually print enough descriptive review to convey the horror of the Portland Trail Blazers’ 124-81 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night. But if they did, your eyes would melt before you could write three paragraphs, and we would have to destroy the entire monkey colony on a general basis. So let’s just skip that and say the Blazers lost badly. Really bad.
If you missed the game, then run. Run hard. But if you want to know how it all went, you can find our quarterly report here. After that, here are some more observations from the game.
No protection
If the question of the day is, “How many Blazers do you need to take out of the lineup before their defense just falls apart?” tonight the answer was: “Just so much.” Portland still played defense in isolation. It looked more like springs flying out of a broken car than the car itself. When they didn’t force infrequent shifts, they skipped assignments, left wide sections of the floor open, and were completely unable to patrol the alley with any efficiency.
No selection
Rebounding has been a strength for the Blazers all year. Even after massive personnel changes, the work of the Board of Directors was carried out actively. Minnesota used size and effort to destroy Portland on glass tonight. The Wolves grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. 19! It’s like worth a week! In some stretches, the Minnesota seemed to be scoring as many second chance points as the Blazers were scoring.
No time
A lot depends on the style of the team or sets. Head coach Chauncey Billups introduced a new system this year, and his young players are hard at work applying it. But no amount of tic-tac-toe can create the lubricant that keeps the gears working: synchronization. Time after time tonight we’ve seen the big Portland player put up a screen, only to have the dribbler use it a step early (or late). Or the screen installer rolled up half a second early. Or the perimeter defender was two steps behind, trying to help cover at the ring.
The Blazers didn’t put on a carefully rehearsed comedy routine like The Stooges or Abbott and Costello. The elements were there, but the execution was pure improvisation. And did not practice improvisation.
No scorers
At one time it seemed impossible. Whoever left the Blazers in the last decade, someone else has been scoring through the net. Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Yusuf Nurkic, Norman Powell, Anferni Simons… one followed the other, taking the reins of power into their own hands. With all those players gone or gone, Portland finally ran out of options. They fielded zero natural scorers today. Usually you ask where they should go with the ball. Five minutes into this game, you realized that it really didn’t matter. Nothing will work.
Missed Opportunities
They say in jazz music that it’s not about the notes you play, it’s about the notes you don’t play. For Portland, it’s not just the shots they hit that count in this game, but the ones they don’t. 18 assists for the Blazers and 9 blocked shots for the Minnesota speaks volumes. Many of Portland’s opportunities were just bad ones, but it seemed like half of the good moments were wiped out before they came.
On the other hand, after shooting 27.7% from the field, the Blazers could eliminate all losses and blocks of the opponent and still score only 15 points. They lost by 43.
Noteworthy notes
Brandon Williams started with 27 points. At the same time, he realized 11-16 free throws.
Drew Eubanks played very well on Saturday night against Wolverhampton, but today he was devoured. In 29 minutes, he scored 2 points on 1-6 shooting, 7 rebounds and little defense.
Portland hit 25.0% from the three-point arc.
Portland scored just 28 points in the paint.
More than a third of their points (28 out of 81) came from the foul line.
Ugh.
Next
boxscore
Portland’s big men’s troubles won’t ease as they travel to Utah to meet the Jazz Wednesday night at 7:00 AM PT.