Blazers' Young Reserves Rise To Terry Stotts' Challenge Against Thunder

A lineup featuring C.J. Elleby and Harry Giles III kept Oklahoma City in check with the game already decided.

The game's result was no longer in doubt when Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Robert Covington joined Norman Powell and Jusuf Nurkic on the bench with 3:50 left in the third quarter on Saturday night. The Trail Blazers' starters had just used a rousing 30-4 run to net a 95-54 lead over the tanking, depleted Oklahoma City Thunder. The final 15-plus minutes of the game would be a formality.

But process always looms large in the NBA, even for a team like Portland that routinely outplays its point differential. By the time the fourth quarter started, with the Blazers leading 104-59, Terry Stotts had challenged his reserves to a game within the game: Keep Oklahoma City below 90 points at the final buzzer.

Mission accomplished. 

Following Portland's 48-point win, tied for its second-largest in franchise history, Stotts lauded a bench unit of Anfernee Simons, CJ Elleby, Nassir Little, Harry Giles III and Enes Kanter for holding onto the rope defensively during an inconsequential fourth quarter.

"What I liked most with that group is we wanted to continue with the defense. We wanted to hold 'em under 90, and we did a good job with that," he said. "We've had games this year, not many, but we've had some games where that group would come in and give up a lot of points. So I was most pleased with what they did as a group defensively and maintaining the margin that we had."

Keeping a Thunder team playing without Shae Gilgeous-Alexander, Al Horford, Luguentz Dort, Mike Muscala and Darius Bazley below 31 points in a quarter is only cause for so much celebration. Oklahoma City's 26 points during the final stanza were the second-most it scored in any quarter on Saturday night. It entered the game's last 12 minutes with a minuscule offensive rating of 74.7, finishing at 81.7.

Clearly, Portland's reserves didn't quite dominate defensively the way its starters did in the first and third quarters. But Stotts was looking for effort and engagement in meaningless minutes more than anything else, and the Blazers gave it to him.

Elleby, especially, refused to take his foot off the gas, making the most of his first extended court time in nearly two weeks.

The Thunder shot 8-of-22 overall and 2-of-12 from three in the fourth quarter. They scored just two baskets in the restricted area and managed only two assists. Portland's defensive rating during the fourth? 104.0, not up to the Blazers' outlier game-long standard, but still comfortably better than the Los Angeles Lakers' league-leading mark.

No one outside the locker room will remember Portland's reserves rising to Stotts' challenge against Oklahoma City. Habits matter, though, and the Blazers won't be able to turn their oft-porous defense around before the playoffs without prioritizing them every time they take the floor – no matter circumstances of time, score and even personnel.

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