Trail Blazers Highlights: Portland Innovates New Way To Lose, Blows Massive Lead Vs Miami

That was rough.

On Tuesday night, your shorthanded Portland Trail Blazers hung an impressively dominant 28-15 opening quarter on the visiting Miami Heat. Miami, incidentally, was playing on the second night of a back-to-back, and did look thoroughly gassed throughout a listless first half.

The Trail Blazers managed to hold serve against a resurgent Heat club in the second period, and took a 56-46 lead into the halftime.

But by the second half, Portland's luck had run out. Powered by perennial All-Stars Jimmy Butler (22 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the floor and 7-of-9 shooting from the foul line, nine assists, four steals, four rebounds and two blocks) and Bam Adebayo (13 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the floor and 3-of-7 shooting from the charity stripe, nine rebounds, two assists, one block), plus their starting backcourt of Terry Rozier (19 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the floor and 3-of-3 shooting from the free throw line) and Duncan Robinson (17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 3-of-3 shooting from the charity stripe), Miami outscored Portland 60-40 in a hilariously lopsided second half. As the game wore on, the Trail Blazers' wealth of absences (including three of its four top guards in Malcolm Brogdon, Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson) eventually got the better of them. 

The available Blazers' shooting fell off a cliff after the break, to the point where everyone was heaving high-arcing jumpers that either air-balled or clanged against the front rim. For the game, the Trail Blazers connected on a scant 40.7% of their 86 field goal attempts (32.3% from deep).

If we zoom in to just the game's second half, however, Miami just exhausted Portland defensively, and the shooting disparities became laughably lopsided. The Heat connected on 63.3% of their 30 field goal tries, including 64.3% of their 14 triple attempts, while the Blazers made just 35.7% of their 42 field goals, including a horrific 8.3% of their three-point takes.

Ultimately, Miami pulled away to put Portland out of its misery, 106-96, in the fourth, knocking the Trail Blazers to a brutal-but-unsurprising 15-42 season record in front of a totally disengaged Rose Garden home crowd. 

Power forward Jerami Grant (24 points on 7-of-15 shooting fro the floor, 7-of-8 shooting from the foul line) and shooting guard Anfernee Simons (26 points on an inefficient 10-of-26 tries from the floor, plus 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line) led the way for Portland. Both did most of their damage in the first half, with Grant scoring 16 of his point in the opening two frames and Simons chipping in 13, on a slightly-more-efficient 5-of-12 shooting line from the floor.

Center Deandre Ayton notched a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double in limited minutes, after landing awkwardly while battling Heat reserve big man Kevin Love for interior positioning in the first half. 

kevin love and deandre ayton are both on the ground and shaken up because of the NBA’s barbaric charge rule pic.twitter.com/f9HncVxwpJ

— Fastbreak Breakfast (@fastbreakbreak) February 28, 2024

He departed the game for good in the second with what was diagnosed as a right hand sprain.

Rookie forward Toumani Camara woke up for the second half, flashing an encouraging array of cool moves, especially in the paint.

DEEP IN HIS DUFFLE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/tlmtipDkgO

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) February 28, 2024