Blazers Collapse Defensively in Second Half, Drop Preseason Home Opener

For a few brief spurts during their preseason home opener against the Utah Jazz, the Portland Trail Blazers looked like the team most anticipated: players flying across the court at a frenetic, energetic pace, Damian Lillard leading the charge with an elite offensive attack, and subsequently, wins to follow.

Unfortunately, as evidenced in the 118-101 loss, those positives weren’t sustained over a 48-minute frame. Still a work in progress, the Blazers’ preseason losing streak extended to nine with tonight’s defeat. It wasn’t all bad, though it wasn’t all good. Here are a few things that stood out:

What Happened:

Well, if there’s one thing we can say for certain, it’s that Damian Lillard happened.

Lillard’s list of elite box score performances runs as long as a CVS receipt. And while these tune-up games won’t count towards that, it was encouraging to see him build upon Monday’s return and further shake off the rust. All told, he poured in 21 points (on just 10 shots) with five rebounds and six assists in 24 minutes, along with a few defensive plays for the highlight reel.

The year is 2022, but that Lillard-to-Nurkic connection was in 2020 form. Portland ran the normal rub actions, pindowns and drag screens for their All-Star guard, putting him in optimal position to get to his spots. By the time he’d risen up for his second three-point attempt, the Jazz defenders were looking at him the way a young student would if they saw their teacher outside of school: with wide eyes and amazement.

When Lillard wasn’t letting it fly, he offered his customary dose of pocket passes to Nurkic — who looks to be an extremely-featured option once more this year — along with five visits to the charity stripe. Save for those five first-half turnovers, it was business as usual.

Lillard commands top billing, but the rest of the group proved noteworthy as well. Heading into tonight, the Blazers had gone “zero-for” in their last eight preseason games, and given that the lack of preseason success sort of bled into the regular season last year, you might’ve watched this year’s exhibitions with a more hopeful eye.

They showed that potential in spurts of a team that looks poised to make a postseason run; early into the second quarter, they opened up an eight-point lead, in which it looked like they were a few stops away from turning it into a runaway. There was another energetic run to start the third quarter, anchored by the impact play of Jerami Grant that got the Moda Center rocking where you thought they’d pull away.

But within that failure to put their boots on the Jazz’s throats, a few of last year’s trends again reared its ugly head: (1) the inability to defend the 3-point line, as the Jazz hit on 45.5 percent on 33 attempts, and then (2) turnovers, a number the Blazers were among the league’s most frequent in committing. To their credit, they did force them too, and that helped fuel a 54-54 halftime…