The Portland Trail Blazers played one of their best halves of basketball this season Tuesday night at the Golden State Warriors. Unfortunately for the Blazers, they then followed up with one of their worst halves.
The Blazers led by as much as 23 points in the first half before falling to pieces and losing 123-105 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
Damian Lillard, who scored a career-high 71 points during Sunday’s win over Houston, was held to 25 points on 9-of-21 shooting. Jerami Grant scored 24.
Jordan Poole led the Warriors with 29 points and Klay Thompson scored 23.
Trough two quarters, the Blazers played phenomenal basketball. The ball moved crisply on offense, leading to repeated good shots, while defensively the Blazers had the Warriors off balance and guessing.
Portland led 41-27 after a first quarter in which Lillard scored 15 points and the Blazers produced 10 assists off of 15 made field goals. The Blazers led 65-48 at halftime.
Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said he warned his team at halftime that the Warriors would make runs and to remain calm and poised.
“We didn’t do a good job of that,” Billups told reporters. “And I thought we lost trust in passing the ball. We passed it really well in the first half. Even when they went to their box-and-one, we still stay spaced and we got the ball to the middle and we just passed it around. Guys hit shots, guys made shots. We were aggressive. And we just didn’t do that in the second half. Particularly in the third quarter. I don’t think we shot good shots. And we lost trust in the pass and that hurt us.”
In the third quarter, the Warriors cranked up the defensive intensity and the Blazers wilted. Portland shot 29.2% from the field and hit just 1 of 10 three-pointers. Meanwhile, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole, who combined to go 2 of 9 on threes in the first half, combined for 24 points in the third quarter. The Warriors won the quarter 39-17 to take an 87-82 lead into the fourth.
The trend continued in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, the Blazers were outscored 75-40 in the second half in a complete turnaround from the first half.
The Blazers shot 35.7% in the first half and 20% on threes to finish the night at 43% and 30.8%.
Portland Trail Blazers forward Jerami Grant, top, shoots against Golden State Warriors forward Anthony Lamb (40) and forward Draymond Green during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) APAP
WHAT IT MEANS
Trail Blazers (29-32) saw a golden opportunity to make up ground in the tight Western Conference playoff race go to waste. The Blazers not only could have picked up a game on the Warriors (32-30), but Tuesday night also saw the Los Angeles Lakers (29-32) lose to Memphis, Dallas (32-31) lose to Indiana and Oklahoma City (28-33) fall to Sacramento. Now the Blazers return home to play the second of a back-to-back against New Orleans (30-32) before starting a six-game trip.
The good news for the Blazers is that they didn’t lose ground. They remained in 11th place just a half game behind the Pelicans.
NEXT UP
The Blazers host the Pelicans (30-32) at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
— Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook). Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts
