The Portland Trail Blazers fell to the Dallas Mavericks 131-120 on Saturday night. The game quickly turned into a shootout, one in which Portland didn’t maintain the adequate firepower to match up with the hot-shooting Mavs and Luka Doncic, who recorded a 40-point triple-double.
Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups stated during the game’s post-game media availability that Portland attempted to adjust to Dallas’ offensive style of play rather than muddying the match with defense and physicality. This is why the game went the way it did.
I felt that we had been waiting too long to fight, to play the customary games of scrapping and clawing. We kind of let it go in the first quarter, playing more like an attacking game because that’s how they play and we’re moving around a lot. We were ordering our people to “attack, attack, attack,” but we thought they were unprotected on the rim. And we did, but we were unable to make a 3.
In response to Billups, the Trail Blazers scored 72 points in the paint but only made 7 of 32 3-pointers, even with Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant returning in the starting lineup. Conversely, the Mavs scored 52 paint points and made 16 of their 47 deep shots.
Billups clarified a situation at the beginning of the second half in the interview as well. Just eighteen seconds into the third quarter, Doncic’s midrange jumper put the team ahead. Billups then called a timeout. Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton was intended to blitz Doncic off of the pick-and-roll on that play, according to Billups, but Ayton stayed back in drop coverage.
When looking at things more broadly, Henderson’s progress has been more favorable since he recovered from an ankle ailment that kept him out of nine games in November. Henderson has started fewer games than not since his return, coming off the bench in the last ten. Billups provided an explanation of the reasoning for his decision to keep the youngster on the bench ever after the injury:
Leave a Reply