The rockiness ended, finally. The last few weeks we’ve played some tough opponents on the road, now we get to play some of those same teams at home. The last 14 games feature 10 games against playoff teams. Obviously that’s not ideal, but if we can win a few of those against teams who have clinched their spot on the playoffs it might help us out. Outside of the Blazers there were a few major things around the league. Steph became the first player to hit 4,000 threes, which is an insane number. Especially when you consider James Harden sitting second all-time in 3-pointers made, and he’s 900-ish behind him. Diana Taurasi announced her retirement from the sport of basketball as one of the best players to ever touch a ball. On 3/13 she held a press conference with the Mercury.
Game #66 - 3/10 @ Golden State (130-120 L)
A game that was consistently just out of reach from the jump. Man, Golden State just never seems to really die, do they? Since getting Jimmy Butler they’ve been monsters. They’re 11-2 since acquiring him at the trade deadline and have vaulted pretty solidly into the top 6. Unless Steph is out for the season, this team always seems to figure it out, which is frustrating. From the Portland side of things, Deni is so back. His absence last week was obviously missed as he produced quite a “do it all double-double,” scoring 34 points on 11/15 shooting and 5/7 from deep and 16 rebounds. Ant also put up a big night scoring 32, but the next highest-scoring guys were 15 from Clingan and 12 from Scoot. This was a game of catching a hot team at the wrong time. I think if we were to have played them a week ago or in a week it might’ve been different. But sadly, we were out matched from tip to final buzzer.
Game #67 - 3/12 vs New York (114-113 OT L)
Mikal Bridges is a bad man. This is a tough loss considering this game was within reach the whole time. New York has moments of being good, and although they have a higher ceiling and floor, Portland should have won this game. This isn’t the first time he’s hit a game-winning three with 40+ lead changes in OT. Yes, that is a sentence that now exists in the world. Back in 2023 he did it against Atlanta. The 30 points from Scoot, 27 from Deni and 21 from Shaedon weren’t enough to overcome this goofy Knicks team. KAT hitting a few threes late in Q4 didn’t help as the Knicks gained a decent lead with only a few mins left. But our defense is still playing really good so we were able to contain them in the end. Sadly, the switch Clingan needed to make onto Bridges was a little late, that ended up giving Bridges a good look at the top of the three-point line for the game-winner. This, like the Cleveland loss, are both great examples of learning opportunities for this young team. The foundation looks pretty set. Now we just need to find the missing pieces.
Game #68 - 3/16 vs Toronto (105-102 W)
Back to winning ways *massive exhale*. We’re doing the thing I previously talked about: beating the teams we’re supposed to and staying competitive with the teams we’re supposed to lose to. Toronto is playing to win when they should very much be losing for a better draft spot. I say that because this game was much closer than it should have been for the Raptors. They were leading 95% of the game until the end. Maybe they took a page out of the Blazers’ playbook from the last few seasons — playing for three solid quarters and then faltering late in the game. We had a bit more balanced scoring tonight with Ant leading the way with 22 points, Toumani with 21, Deni with 19, and Shaedon with 17. Scoot had a particularly horrendous shooting night only making 2 of his 12 shots from the floor. But the biggest news was getting Mattise Thybulle back from injury. Man oh man is his presence immediately felt when he’s on the floor. Absolutely massive to have him back in the lineup as we sit 3.5 games out of the 10-seed.
Record: 1-2 (29-39)
Next Week’s Games: 3/17 vs Washington, 3/19 vs Memphis, 3/21 vs Denver, 3/23 vs Boston