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| San Antonio Spurs |
San Antonio Spurs Rumors - Damian Lillard (25 points on 21 shots, five assists) finally locked in offensively to lead a varied and productive Blazer attack.
SI’s 2014 NBA playoffs hub: Schedule, results and analysis Portland extended its season with a surge of offense. The Blazers have scored efficiently enough to keep competitive at various points in this series, yet Game 4 was the first time Portland locked into its most potent, unrelenting form. When the Blazers move the ball this well they can stay a beat ahead of even the better defensive teams in the league. The pull of LaMarcus Aldridge (19 points on 16 shots) helped Lillard push to the rim, while Lillard’s assertiveness opened up room for Nicolas Batum (14 points on 11 shots, 14 rebounds, eight assists) to work as a facilitator. Impressively, they struck that balance in the most desperate game of their season. Portland’s third quarter, in particular, was a stunning crescendo. San Antonio did itself no favors.
Monday’s game was all about Portland. As a team San Antonio had made but a single three-pointer and totaled more turnovers (seven) than assists (five) to that point. For all of those specific struggles to manifest as a one-possession game did not seem to bode well for the Blazers, especially when considering just how quickly the Spurs’ game-deciding runs in this series have unfurled.
That decisive swing never came for San Antonio. No team in the league better positions its supporting scorers, and even in Game 4 half of San Antonio’s field goal attempts qualified as uncontested, per NBA.com. They made just 17 of those 44 attempts to shoot 38.6 percent while unguarded in this particular game — a solid 10 points lower than the Spurs’ season average (48.5). This kind of thing happens, even to teams as skilled as San Antonio. The Blazers find a pair of unlikely heroes. There was no standalone savior for Portland in Game 4, though among those most vital in staving off the Blazers’ elimination were Lopez (nine points, 12 rebounds) and Will Barton (17 points on 13 shots, six rebounds).
Lopez, at best, is the fifth-billed Blazer. Barton’s 17 points set the high-water mark among Blazer reserves in this series.
