Trail Blazers at Clippers
The road has not been kind to the Portland Trail Blazers of late, but an impressive home win on Friday might be just the boost the team needs ahead of a visit to the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday. The Trail Blazers busted out of an offensive slump by outlasting the NBA-best Toronto Raptors 128-122, avoiding a third straight setback.
Portland is suffering through a six-game road slide and scored a season-low 83 points at Memphis on Wednesday before making the brief stop back in the northwest and lighting up the scoreboard. "Obviously, it was a very good win against a very good team," Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts told reporters. "I was really proud of our bench. They played extraordinary. I was happy for them, it's been a struggle lately and they had a lot of good rhythm, a lot of good energy, played well together, played with confidence. It's an understatement that they made the difference in the game." The Clippers are in a slump with losses in three straight and five of the last six games but are beginning a three-game homestand against Portland and showed some spark in a loss at Oklahoma City on Saturday. "I don't like to lose at all but tonight I felt like the Clippers were back again," Los Angeles coach Doc Rivers told reporters. "I don't know where it came from, but the energy was phenomenal. I just liked our energy, our spirit. It was just good to see. I thought for whatever reason our team returned today and so moving forward I think we'll be in good shape."
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, NBCS Northwest (Portland), FS Prime Ticket (Los Angeles)
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (16-13): Power forward Zach Collins led four reserves in double figures with 16 points and the five bench players combined to go 22-of-36 from the floor on Friday. "I think it really was just our energy," guard Nik Stauskas, who scored 13 points, told reporters. "We were moving the ball from side to side, we were cutting hard. I think most importantly, we were getting stops on the defensive end and were kind of able to run out in transition and not have to call as many plays. I think that's when we’re kind of most effective, we call it playing out of flow. I think the more we can do that, the more effective we can be." The bench was so effective that no starter logged more than Damian Lillard's 29 minutes in the win.
ABOUT THE CLIPPERS (17-12): Los Angeles fell by a total of 62 points in losses to Toronto and San Antonio before battling the Thunder in a 110-104 road loss on Saturday. The Clippers shot 50.7 percent from the floor, including 13-of-25 from 3-point range, and had three players score at least 20 points in the setback. "Seeing the ball go in for a lot of guys tonight was a good sign, too, of that confidence that we've been missing for some time now," small forward Tobias Harris told reporters. "I thought as a team everybody, including myself, had too many turnovers and just mentally we let the referees get to us and let that disrupt our composure that we've got to be better at. I think we take away a couple of those things it would have been a great game for us, overall."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Trail Blazers C Jusuf Nurkic is 5-of-30 from the floor over the last two games.
2. Clippers SG Lou Williams (hamstring) is expected to miss his fourth straight game.
3. The teams split the first two meetings, with Los Angeles earning a 104-100 victory at Portland in the most recent matchup on Nov. 25.