Baffled Blazers look for answers vs. Griz
PORTLAND, Ore. — As the Trail Blazers entered the second week of their series-long search for answers against Memphis, it looked something like this: All-Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge facing questions about his impending free agency; sixth man C.J. McCollum awkwardly realizing that Sunday’s practice might be the last of the season; and point guard Damian Lillard discussing whether his team has been stubborn by not making major adjustments against the Grizzlies.
At one point, backup center Meyers Leonard was asked if the team is still having fun. (He said yes.)
And so it went for a half-hour inside the team’s practice facility Sunday, with reporter after reporter asking about the 0-3 deficit the Blazers face, how they plan to deal with it and what might happen if they fail. In reality, it was a 30-minute reminder that no team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 hole to win a series.
“We’ve just got to play one game at time,” small forward Nicolas Batum said. “We can’t really think about
needing to win the next four. We’ve got to think about Monday’s game. Win this game Monday and that’s it.”
That message, or some variation of it, echoed around the gym from player to player and on to head coach Terry Stotts. One day at a time and one game at a time, they all said, is the only way a lopsided series can be flipped.
And it has been lopsided. Portland didn’t score more than 86 points in either of the first two games in Memphis, trailing by at least 19 points in both games. The Blazers’ defense against the Grizzlies’ guards was horrific; their offense was absent. Only Game 3 — another loss, albeit by a closer margin — offered a sliver of hope to a team that has won 50 games in each of the last two regular seasons.
“We were down three with 2½ minutes to go at home,” Stotts said of Saturday’s game. “You like your chances.”
Yet even as Lillard returned to relative normalcy with 22 points and nine assists, even as Batum ignited for 27 points (including six 3-pointers), even as the first- and second-string point guards for Memphis were unable to play due to injuries, Portland still lost. It was, as McCollum put it, “as frustrating as it gets.”
The third consecutive loss bore similarities to the first two in that Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph remained mediocre at best from the field. They shot a combined 12-for-29 in Game 3, relying instead on a trio of guards — Conley (14 points), Courtney Lee (20), Nick Calathes (13 off the bench) — for efficient scoring and timely perimeter jumpers.
The performance, because of its frustrating resemblance to the first two games, invited a series of awkward questions to Stotts and his players about whether the Blazers were actually making adjustments between games because, well, nothing seemed visible.
Lillard said this was to be expected because the alterations through the first three games have been “subtle,” unlikely to be noticed by “anybody outside of our team.” He repeated the party line that Stotts has issued and reissued throughout the series: Portland will continue to do the things that got Portland to the playoffs. The players trust the system.
“That’s kind of stubborn, though, right?” a reporter from The Oregonian asked Lillard, wondering if an 0-3 deficit warrants major changes in a lastditch effort.
“Sometimes you’ve got to be like that,” Lillard said. “Stick to what you know, what works for you.”
Added Stotts: “You can tinker and adjust on certain plays or certain players, which we’ve done, but we’re not going to completely change what we do.”