The Portland Trail Blazers let a winnable game slip through their fingers Tuesday night in Washington as the Wizards snapped a nine-game losing streak with a 115-111 win.<\/p>\n
It was a familiar story for the Blazers, who committed 20 turnovers and made just 13 of their 23 free throws.<\/p>\n
The Blazers fall to 23-25 and have now lost three straight. The Wizards improve to 11-34.<\/p>\n
Shaedon Sharpe led the Blazers with an efficient 31 points on 11-20 shooting, including 5-8 on three-pointers. The Blazers turned to Sharpe late in crunch time. He made a huge three-pointer and a driving dunk in the final minute, but his mid-range fadeaway fell short with :10 left.<\/p>\n
That shot would have tied the game, but the Blazers were unable to secure the offensive rebound and Khris Middleton sealed the game at the other end with a pair of free throws for the Wizards.<\/p>\n
Here are a few key observations from the game.<\/p>\n
Deni Avdija returned to the lineup after missing the past two games with a lingering back injury. He made his first two three-pointers on his way to nine first quarter points, but for much of the game, he didn\u2019t play with his usual downhill force.<\/p>\n
Against his former team, Avdija finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds, but committed six turnovers and made just 2-6 from the free throw line.<\/p>\n
Coach Tiago Splitter clearly wanted to manage his workload. Avdija played nearly 31 minutes, but got a lengthy rest in the fourth quarter before returning to the game with 4:30 left. He hit a three-pointer almost immediately after checking in to give the Blazers a four point lead, but he was mostly quiet over the last several minutes of the game and the Blazers were unable to hold on.<\/p>\n
The Blazers set season lows for first quarter points in their last two games, scoring 12 against the Raptors on Friday and 11 against the Celtics last night. They did better against the Wizards, but it wasn\u2019t a good first half.<\/p>\n
Avdija wasn\u2019t the only slow starter Tuesday night. As a team, the Blazers turned the ball over 13 times and made just four of their 12 free throw attempts in the first half. The sloppy play helped the Wizards score 18 fast break points (compared to just four for the Blazers) and take a seven point lead into halftime.<\/p>\n
Sharpe provided consistent offense for the Blazers, but with Avdija not his usual self, the Blazers needed somebody to step up.<\/p>\n
Toumani Camara was effective, scoring 16 points and making four of his six three-pointers. But in the fourth quarter, he managed only two points. Jrue Holiday had just five points on 2-14 shooting from the field. Caleb Love and Jerami Grant had just six points apiece.<\/p>\n
The Wizards had the more balanced attack Tuesday night. Alex Sarr led the team with 29 points despite shooting just 11-29. Middleton added 19 points, including the game-sealing free throws. Rookie Tre Johnson chipped in 18 points and Kyshawn George (19 points) and Bub Carrington (11 points) had huge baskets in the fourth quarter to secure the win for the Wizards.<\/p>\n
The Blazers dominated the rebounding battle. According to the NBA\u2019s official stats, the Blazers outrebounded the Wizards 85-54.<\/p>\n
Donovan Clingan set a franchise record with 13 offensive rebounds. He finished with 20 total rebounds to go along with 14 points.<\/p>\n
Yang Hansen tied his career high with five rebounds in nearly 12 minutes of action. During his time on the floor, he was a team-high +11.<\/p>\n
Looking at the schedule, this was the game the Blazers had to have on this road trip. It\u2019s tough to win in Boston and New York, but Washington?<\/p>\n
The Wizards are trying to tank. They traded CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert to the Atlanta Hawks for Trae Young on January 7th. The injured Young has yet to suit up for a game and the Wizards had lost all nine of their games since the deal.<\/p>\n
The Blazers failed to jump on the Wizards early, gave them too many easy baskets and transition opportunities, and let this one get away.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have a tough game Friday night in New York where they\u2019ll try to avoid an 0-3 road trip.<\/p>\n
The Blazers finish up their three-game road trip Friday against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Tipoff is at 4:30 PM Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers let a winnable game slip through their fingers Tuesday night in Washington as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-565507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115970790160882337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}