The Portland Trail Blazers entered the Moda Center on Thursday night looking to defeat the San Antonio Spurs, a team that has just four wins all season. But beating Spurs would mean solving the Victor Wembanyama problem. That's probably beyond Portland's capacity on a good day, let alone a game in which they started without three-fifths of their starting lineup. A strong first period put the Spurs ahead by 24. Portland fought back the rest of the night but couldn't get any closer and ultimately suffered a 118-105 loss.
Wembanyama had 30 points on 9-14 shooting with 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 7 blocks in the win. The Blazers were led by Jerami Grant with 29 points, tied with Malcolm Brodgon, who was 6-8 from long range for 29 points.
Scoot Henderson got the start against San Antonio, played 36 minutes and scored 25 points on 8-23 shooting. He also had 6 turnovers.
If you missed the action, you can read our quarterly roundup here. Now that you're done with that, here are a few more observations that shaped the evening.
Injuries
Before we get too hung up on the Trail Blazers for a disappointing performance, let's remember who didn't play tonight. Anfernee Simons missed the game day due to illness. Shaedon Sharpe is still not back, robbing the Blazers of their two most dynamic and defensive scorers. Deandre Ayton is still dealing with tendonitis in his knee, while Duop Reath – the 25-point hero in Portland's surprise win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night – is also scratched.
This meant that Moses Brown, Scoot Henderson and Malcolm Brogdon were in the starting line-up around Jerami Grant and Toumani Camara. This trio is ready and has proven to be at least semi-competent, but they aren't exactly rocking the world, especially on offense.
A lack of firepower on Portland's side allowed the Spurs to gang up on Grant, loosening another cog in the machine.
Portland may not have won anyway, but they had little chance anyway when San Antonio started scoring big.
Wemby
No one has a true answer for a 6-foot-3, versatile center with point guard handles and shooting guard range. The Blazers didn't think about bothering him with this lineup or making him work really hard on defense.
By halftime, Victor Wembanyama had scored 17 points against Portland on 6-7 shooting. He also had 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 blocks. Half way. It wasn't fair.
Simply put, whenever San Antonio needed to contain Portland in its desperate comeback attempt after a 38-14 first-period lead, Wembanyama did it. He was the father who took the annoying cat off the desk and put it on the floor. He may have to do it a few times before Kitty gets the message, but you know who will prevail.
Side note: You don't even understand how much Wembanyama impacts the defensive side of the field until you realize that his 7 blocks were surrounded by countless plays where drivers had to turn away from him, change course, and change shots to get outside to remain his reach. Once upon a time, Portland center Theo Ratliff had that effect on his opponents. He was one of the most established shot blockers of all time, his reputation putting him on the track. After a total of 29 games and about 14 minutes of personal experience in Portland, Wembanyama has already earned that respect from the Blazers. Great.
Scoot
All in all though, Scoot Henderson didn't do too badly in his start tonight. He provided an upswing in the second quarter to make the game respectable. He timed his moves well, even if he had difficulty finishing them. His defense was decent. The overall stats don't look all that impressive, but at least San Antonio knew he was out there. He would have had more shooters than just Brogdon in his orbit. The Blazers shot just 11-36, 30.6%, from beyond the arc tonight. That allowed San Antonio to sit on Scoot, forcing him to make a number of outside shots, including seven three-pointers. He hit 3, so no damage, but his inside attempts ran into heavy traffic whether Wemby was on the ground or not.
Badji Spark
With Ayton out, Moses Brown getting eaten up and Jabari Walker coming in due to a breakdown, Ibou Badji got his first serious playing time of the season tonight. He was impressive, scoring his first NBA points by confidently knocking down a Henderson layup miss. He was also a good rebounder, blocked a shot and played aggressively despite being significantly inferior on paper. Badji seemed determined to ruin the game if he couldn't help his team win. The Blazers may need a little more of that. His final stats were: 14 minutes, 7 points, 9 rebounds, 3-3 shots and 3 big blocked shots. Hello Ibou.
Bad case of runs
Portland's comeback attempts certainly weren't helped by a near-constant stream of Spurs points on the run. Portland misses too often resulted in easy run-outs, not to mention turnovers. San Antonio jumped out to a 21-2 advantage in fast break points tonight. That's a head shake. as they are usually no better than mediocre.
Offensive rebounds
We could point to many more things that the Blazers did poorly in this game: early turnovers, missing points in the game, terrible overall shooting percentage. But let's point out one of the positive aspects. They grabbed 22 offensive rebounds from the Spurs and only gave up 7. For better or worse, this remains a focus for the team, and boy, did they emphasize it.
Next
Box score
The Blazers face the same Spurs tomorrow night at the Moda Center, with the same start time, 7:00 p.m., Pacific.
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