The official scorebook will tell you the Portland Trail Blazers suffered their latest loss at 10:29 p.m., when their first nationally-televised game of the season mercifully came to an end.
But, really, the loss came hours earlier, when Jerami Grant arrived at the Moda Center reeling from an illness.
He was ruled out about an hour before tipoff, and for a team already limping along without three injured point guards, Grant’s late-game scratch proved to be a crippling blow.
The Phoenix Suns blasted the shorthanded Blazers Tuesday night on NBC, building a 25-point lead before cruising to a 127-110 victory before
The Blazers’ depleted rotation, which featured a pair of two-way players and Yang Hansen — who played in his first NBA game this month — was no match for the red-hot Suns (9-6), who won for the eighth time in the last 10 games.
Shaedon Sharpe scored 29 points for the Blazers (6-8), but he needed 24 field goals to do so, and the Blazers’ lack of ball-handlers and facilitators was no match for Phoenix’s length and defense.
The Suns forced the Blazers into 20 turnovers, thanks to 19 steals, which the most collected by any NBA team this season. All the while, the Blazers’ offense was a mess, heaving multiple airballs and bricks off the backboard that never had a chance. Portland finished just 10 of 41 from three-point range.
The Blazers clawed and scraped in the first half, entering the halftime locker room trailing just 64-61. But things went sideways in the third quarter, when the Suns erupted for a 16-2 run to snatch momentum. When Robert Williams III inexplicably passed the ball to no one near midcourt and Ryan Dunn sprinted the other way for a fast-break dunk, Phoenix turned that decisive run into an 80-65 lead with 7:45 left in the third and the and the rout was on.
The lead swelled to 25 points early in the fourth as the Suns handed the Blazers their third loss in a row and sixth in the last eight games.
Top performers
Devin Booker finished with 19 points, six rebounds and five assists and Mark Williams added 15 points and six rebounds for Phoenix, which shot 49% from the field, scored 20 fast-break points and turned all those Portland turnovers into 21 points.
Deni Avdija finished with 19 points, five rebounds and five assists and Caleb Love added a career-high 17 points and seven rebounds, to go with three assists, for Portland.
Hansen returns
The Blazers’ injury woes opened a window for Yang Hansen to play and he made his first appearance with the Blazers since Oct. 29.
The rookie center, who just returned from a two-game NBA G League stint with the Rip City Remix, entered the game with 8:23 left in the second quarter. He had a couple early blunders, allowing a rebound to slip through his hands during his first defensive possession then committing a turnover on a pass to Sharpe, but he recovered to produce a decent first shift.
With 6:37 left, he scored his first field goal — completing a left-handed layup on a post move on the block — then recorded his first assist on a nice bounce pass to Sidy Cissoko in the paint
He went on to play five minutes in the first half, finishing with four points, one rebound and one assist. By game’s end, the 7-foot-2 Chinese center had produced nine points, five rebounds, three assists and one block in 13 minutes. He made 4 of 7 shots.
Next up
The Blazers host the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night at 7 in the second game of a home back-to-back.
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