Trail Blazers' Streak Ends With Frustrating Loss To Wizards

The Trail Blazers' six-game winning streak comes to an end as Bradley Beal and the Wizards come from behind in the fourth quarter.

Notes, analysis, observations, highlights and more from the Portland Trail Blazers' 118-111 loss to the Washington Wizards on Saturday at Moda Center.

• The tenor of this game was clear from the jump, and could have been predicted before then. Two of the league's bottom-five defenses looked like it early, as Washington hit seven of its first eight shots and Portland dropped a season-high 43 points in the first quarter. 
• The Blazers were definitely a step slow on Saturday, seeming unprepared to deal with the Wizards' league-best pace. But there's pretty much no dealing with the best offensive players in basketball when they're aggressive and have it going, which Bradley Beal did throughout against Portland. One big reason why? Beal targeted Enes Kanter in ball-screen and dribble hand-off action early and often, and treated Carmelo Anthony as similarly easy prey. If you're wondering how Kanter and Anthony are likely to fare defensively against the league's best come playoff time, look no further than below.

• Washington allows the fewest shots at the rim in basketball mostly because of an ultra-conservative defensive scheme that calls for its centers to rarely leave the paint and protect the rim at all costs. The Wizards deviated from that strategy in a big way against Portland, blitzing Damian Lillard in ball-screen action to make other players beat them. That meant a lot of touches for Kanter, both as a roller after setting screens and beasting smaller foes in the paint as an offensive rebounder. The starts and stops the Blazers endured offensively on Saturday are bound to happen when the opposition commits so fervently to forcing the ball from Lillard's hands. The surest remedy? Getting C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic back in the lineup, to both better take advantage of a defense selling out to stop Lillard, and to prevent that strategy from being implemented in the first place.
• Robin Lopez's game-high +25 plus-minus isn't lying. He abused the Blazers' small-ball second unit from the post during the first half, and was the linchpin of the Wizards' stingy crunch-time defense. It's fair to say that his impact would have been muted at least somewhat if Harry Giles was healthy, let alone Nurkic. But even at 32, playing for his third team in as many years, Lopez's length, timing and sense of angles still make him an intimidating, effective presence defensively.
• Portland shot an abysmal 4-of-25 in the second quarter, bricking jumpers all over the floor and failing to score from anywhere but the restricted area. Related: Lillard spent the quarter's first seven minutes on the bench, relegating the Blazers' second-unit offense to its typically rote, stagnant approach. Portland has been losing those minutes all season long, but normally gets a few difficult attempts to fall before Lillard comes back in to put pressure on the defense that naturally leads to ball movement and open shots. Not on Saturday, sparking a drought that turned the Blazers' double-digit lead into a six-point deficit by halftime.
• Lillard, by the way, closed a 23-point third quarter by connecting from the logo as the buzzer sounded. After Portland opened the final stanza by making a technical free throw, missing its first three shots and committing two turnovers, Terry Stotts called Lillard from the bench to cut his normal rest short barely more than two minutes into the fourth.

a highlight of a buzzer beating layup pic.twitter.com/FKNtBQSGiI

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) February 21, 2021

• Not even Lillard's early sub fixed what was ailing the Blazers. Beal was absolutely dominant in the fourth quarter, while Washington's role players contributed by exploiting Portland's lackadaisical transition defense and Kanter's inability to move on the perimeter. Offense, though, proved the more problematic side of the ball. Lillard did his best to conjure his late-game magic through sheer force, but there's only so much he could do with the Wizards hellbent on preventing it.

• The NBA, you've heard before, is a make-or-miss league. Even on a night Lillard wasn't otherworldly, he had Portland in good position late to win its seventh straight game. But when Anthony and Anfernee Simons combine to shoot 4-of-20 off the bench, it's just going to be really hard for the Blazers to win – especially in the same game a non-shooter like Russell Westbrook goes 5-of-6 on non-paint twos.

Next up: at Phoenix Suns on Monday, 6:00 p.m. (PST)