Spurs at Trail Blazers
Monday's meeting between the host Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs became meaningless from a playoff perspective on Sunday evening, when Denver squandered a fourth-quarter lead in a loss to Oklahoma City. That defeat clinched the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference for the Trail Blazers.
Portland had reduced its magic number to one on Saturday, when Damian Lillard scored a franchise-record 59 points in a 101-86 win over Utah. The Nuggets, who were battling the Trail Blazers for that final spot, fell on a last-second 3-pointer by MVP candidate Russell Westbrook the next day, leaving Portland to face top-seeded Golden State in the first round of the playoffs. The Spurs are locked into the No. 2 seed but are not happy with the way they have played of late, dropping two of their last three games. "Our execution at both ends, defensively and offensively, was very poor," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich told reporters after Saturday's 98-87 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. "Nobody's going to rest. Everybody's going to play. We already rested everybody, and we have days in between now. It's like the playoffs, kind of. There's no back-to-backs. There's no bad travel or anything like that, so it's time for rhythm and that sort of thing. Hopefully, we'll play better next week."
TV: 10 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (San Antonio), CSN Northwest (Portland)
ABOUT THE SPURS (61-19): Popovich is known for resting players but vowed to play as many healthy players as possible over the last two games in an effort to get the team into a better rhythm going into the playoffs. All-Star small forward Kawhi Leonard, who scored 28 points against the Clippers after sitting out the previous game, was looking forward to facing a Trail Blazers team still fighting for a playoff spot. "Playing Portland, them being in the eighth seed trying to secure their position, that's going to be tough playing them at home," Leonard told ESPN after Saturday's loss. "These are the types of games we want to play. We just don't want to walk over teams. We want teams to give their full effort, and we need to as well. It's going to be a great last two games for us."
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (40-40): Lillard has averaged 30.6 points over his last 17 games to lead Portland into the playoffs and entered Saturday's contest ready to bring his team to the edge of clinching. "I knew coming into the game that I was going to come out and I was going attack them, just knowing how important the game was," Lillard told reporters. "I decided early that I’m going to come out here and impose my will on them and see how it goes. I saw the ball go in, I was able to get rolling in the first quarter and, usually if I have a big quarter, I kind of take a step back and move the ball and things like that. But tonight, I never did." Lillard scored 26 points in the first quarter to match his own franchise record.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Trail Blazers SF Al-Farouq Aminu scored two points on 1-of-8 shooting Saturday, ending his string of six straight games in double figures.
2. Rookie PG Dejounte Murray (groin) is the only Spurs player ruled out for Monday.
3. Portland snapped a six-game losing streak in the series with a 110-106 win at San Antonio on March 15.