When the Portland Trail Blazers faced the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night, once again they lined up against a squad that could field a better team in street clothes than the Blazers at full health. Oklahoma City sat Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren, among others, playing reserves they hoped would get experience against this young and plucky Blazers team. Portland was missing forward Deni Avdija and center Deandre Ayton from their normal starting lineup but welcomed back veteran forward Jerami Grant after an extended absence.
Several experienced teams have laid in wait for the Blazers in recent games, letting Portland run themselves out and then catching up to them late...or not, depending on the night. This young version of the Thunder did the opposite, running with, and sometimes over, the Blazers from the get-go in a game that ended up as much street ball as NBA.
Portland made a spirited run in the second period and another in the third and fourth, turning double-digit leads into single-digit, but a triple-double from Jaylin Williams and 30 points from Aaron Wiggins were enough to propel Oklahoma City to a 107-89 win.
Here are some observations from the outing.
Clingan Covering Perimeter
As has been Portland’s practice lately, Donovan Clingan started this game. He provided 8 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes. Earlier in the year, in limited duty, Clingan’s strengths were evident. In the starting role his weaknesses are more apparent. In particular, the Blazers have trouble closing to the perimeter when he is in the game. Portland prospers when they oversell on close-outs and turnover attempts at the perimeter. To their credit, their offense is aggressive. That leaves holes open behind the perimeter defenders. Clingan is good at stopping attempts in the lane, but it’s an either-or. proposition. If Donovan is touching the lane, he’s not going to be able to get to the arc like the Blazers need off of the pass-out.
This is only partially a solvable issue. Clingan can get more aware and keep in shape so he moves a little faster, but he’s an old-style center whose defensive zone of strength lies within eight feet of the bucket. That’s why the Blazers love him. If he’s going to start down the road, they probably need to get more controlled on the perimeter so as not to expose him so much.
This problem is exacerbated, of course, by Avdija’s absence. He provides a second point of secure defense outside along with Toumani Camara. Without Avdija, Camara’s RPM’s go into the red. And he still can’t be everywhere at once, regardless.
Without Clingan, Though...
The flip side to this story is that without Clingan, the Blazers have almost no credible interior defense. At best, if they have time and read the play right, Camara or Shaedon Sharpe will try to rotate in front of the restricted area to draw a charge. It’s great when it works, but it’s too infrequent to change the game.
Absent that, the Blazers look pretty poor defending drives. Duop Reath is not an interior defender. Walker is not a center. Portland’s non-defensive wings let opponents get a step on them far too easily. Dunks and soaring layups were too frequent for the Thunder tonight.
Threes
As should be evident by the foregoing, three-pointers also came pretty easy for OKC. They shot 13-38 from the arc, overwhelming one of Portland’s favored attacks. It wasn’t like they won the game with the long ball. They did keep the Blazers from doing so. Portland shot an astonishing (for the wrong reasons), 8-43, 18.6%.
Grant Shooting
The NBA League Pass broadcast ran a commercial for Hennessy repeatedly during the action tonight. In it, an entire bar stops as the Philadelphia 76ers get up a buzzer-beater that rolls around and around the rim, threatening to dribble over the edge to the right side. The bar crowd all leans sideways, as if to coax the ball back in the cylinder. Finally, an affable and cool dude tips his glass of Hennessy sideways too, at which point the ball drops into the cup and the horn sounds.
Well, my man would have to tumble that glass like a Six Flags roller coaster and toss it on the ground to get Jerami Grant’s shots to go in tonight. He is theoretically a key cog in the offense, particularly with the Blazers shorthanded. Jerami shot 2-10, 0-6 from the arc. Portland just couldn’t survive that, given the circumstances.
Toumani Camara earns honorable mention in the “oops” category, firing 2-13 from the floor, 1-6 from distance.
Simons Heater
Portland got a brief ray of light in the second when Anfernee Simons took control of the offense and started pouring in layups and runners. As we’ve said before, nobody does it from all levels like he does...the one thing he contributes to this lineup that matters.
The flip side of that is that Simons’ perimeter defense was one of the causes of Oklahoma City joy tonight. Also he was not as successful in the third period as he was in the second.
Simons would finish with just 14 points, shooting 5-16 from the field, 1-6 at the three-point arc. Thunder guard Alex Caruso shut down Simons in the final period. in particular. It was ugly.
Scoot Heater
Scoot Henderson helped spur a second-half run, finishing with 22 points on 8-15 shooting, one of the few Blazers to break through in this one.
One of the issues for Scoot now is that he appears to be playing with the lower-string players, giving him correspondingly fewer outlets to pass to. Henderson is good on the drive but isolation ball is not his best game. He’s supposed to be a multi-threat point guard. It’s hard when the options get reduced because guys are standing and/or missing shots and just bail out to Scoot to score. That helps explain his ratio of 3 assists to 4 turnovers in an otherwise-nice game.
Simple, In the End
With all of that said, sometimes games boil down to the basics. The Blazers shot 34.7% from the field in this one, the Thunder 46.4%. Portland’s young lineup didn’t have more energy than OKC’s. They outrebounded the Thunder 14-4 on the offensive glass but only turned that into a +6 scoring margin. They didn’t outshoot them from the arc or draw more fouls...at least not enough to matter. Portland never did anything to take over this game. That’s why not enough offense and not enough defense spelled their doom tonight with barely a squeak of protest.
Up Next
Boxscore
The Blazers finally return home now from their extended road trip, meeting the Detroit Pistons on Sunday evening with a 6:00, Pacific start.