Despite building a big lead early on Tuesday night, the Portland Trail Blazers succumbed to the hot shooting of Colin Gillespie and the Phoenix Suns, losing 130-125. This defeat marks the Blazers\u2019 sixth loss in a row, and places the Blazers at 23-28, good for 10th in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n
Gillespie led the Suns with 30 points in 33 minutes of play. Jerami Grant topped the Blazers with 23.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the key points that determined the outcome, or at least were interesting enough to note.<\/p>\n
The last two weeks of Blazers basketball have been defined by stagnation. Injuries and a congested schedule meant the Blazers came out flat for their recent competitions. On one hand, nearly every team hits this wall at some point during the season. 82 games \u2013 as players, coaches, and fans have all expressed \u2013 is a lot. The return of Blake Wesley, though, seems to have inspired a second wind for the faltering Blazers. At least, it did for the first 24 minutes of this game.<\/p>\n
Wesley\u2019s presence very clearly inspires increased defensive activity and movement. His pace and, \u201cI am going to run as fast as I possibly can directly to the rim\u201d disposition open up secondary actions for the Blazers. Wesley\u2019s ability to locate cutters on those actions means the offense looks and feels more dynamic.<\/p>\n
Wesley scored 10 points on 4-8 shooting with 4 assists in 20 minutes of play.<\/p>\n
Speaking of niche, qualitative observations about the Blazers\u2019 playstyle, new acquisition Vit Krejci gave fans plenty to be excited about. Whereas the Blazers of old were susceptible to opponents packing the paint, the shiny, new-look Blazers have the luxury of Krejci spacing the floor. In practice, this looks like open driving lanes for ball handlers and space for shooters to exploit. Though Krejci couldn\u2019t find his shot tonight, his mere presence changed the balance of the floor on the offensive end.<\/p>\n
As a side effect of the Krejci deal, the rotation looks\u2026 uncomfortable. Caleb Love was unable to find a groove tonight, earning only eight minutes in the game. Krejci himself finished with just 14 minutes. Blazers head coach Tiago Splitter has some difficult decisions to make as his roster returns to full strength. Joe Cronin may be able to help guide those decisions ahead of the trade deadline this Thursday.<\/p>\n
In his first game with the Blazers, Krejci went 1-6 from the three-point arc on his way to 5 points. He did add 2 steals to the mix though.<\/p>\n
As unsexy as it is to assert that the game was, once again, decided from three-point range, that\u2019s the way it worked out.<\/p>\n
At first it looked like the Blazers would dominate the Suns from beyond the arc. The first quarter saw Portland shoot 7-14 from three and leading by as much as 19 points in the period. The Suns shot only 3-9 in that span.<\/p>\n
As a pessimist, this shot chart indicated to me that the next few quarters would be tough to watch. After all, the Blazers did not become the league\u2019s worst three-point shooting team by shooting well from distance! The Blazers proceeded to shoot 10-36 from beyond the arc the rest of the way, good for a final tally of 17 -50 overall (33%, or their season average). The Suns finished 20 of 41. It\u2019s hard to beat averages.<\/p>\n
In the third quarter Gillespie and Grayson Allen seemingly decided that they would never miss another three ever again. This brutal 12-minute stretch saw Allen cashing in on 4 of his 5 threes, while Gillespie hit 5 of 6. Gillespie would continue his reign of terror into the fourth quarter, finishing with a career-high 30 points on 8-14 shooting.<\/p>\n
After getting diced up by Jarrett Allen two nights ago, Donovan Clingan was clearly out for revenge against the Suns. He hit on his first three casts from long range and snagged multiple momentum-shifting offensive rebounds. Clingan was active defensively, securing two blocks and four \u201cnopes\u201d (where the driving player decides he\u2019d rather not even attempt a shot rather than be blocked). However, he was benched for the majority of the second half when it became clear that the Blazers could not effectively play him and scheme against the Suns\u2019 shooters. Clingan\u2019s limited mobility means he is most effective in drop coverage. The Suns exploited this limitation, running more high pick-and-rolls than Cheech and Chong playing pick-up.<\/p>\n
As the Blazers continue to round into a competitive basketball team, they will need to find ways to minimize Clingan\u2019s shortcomings. In moments where he works, he is a force. When opposing teams find a way to exploit his weaknesses, though, he looks\u2026 well, exploitable.<\/p>\n
Clingan finished the game with 14 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 assists in 27 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Blazers continue their homestand on Friday against the newly rebuilding Memphis Grizzlies on Friday at 7:00 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite building a big lead early on Tuesday night, the Portland Trail Blazers succumbed to the hot shooting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,37787,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-581451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers-analysis","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-phoenixsuns","14":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116011393656086606","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581451","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=581451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}