Trail Blazers Outfox Kings with Guard Defense, Bench Scoring

The Portland Trail Blazers knocked out the best game of their season on Tuesday night, smashing the visiting Sacramento Kings 130-113. The Blazers took control in the middle of the first quarter and never looked back, largely because of huge contributions from their reserves.

130 points marks a season-high for the Blazers scoring. Center Deandre Ayton sat out the game, but reserve Duop Reath responded with career highs in scoring and rebounding. Guard Scoot Henderson also registered a career high in assists and his third-best scoring game ever. Anfernee Simons led the Blazers with 29 points.

If you missed the game, you can find our quarter-by-quarter recap here. After that, here are a few other things to know.

No Threes, No Pain

The Kings rank third in the NBA, averaging 45.8 points per game from the three-point arc. They shoot 36.8% from distance on average. Tonight the Blazers held them to 10-42 three-point shooting, 23.8%, for just 30 points beyond the arc.

Portland’s superlative guard defense did half the trick. The Blazers were active and fast going around screens. They switched well too. Matisse Thybulle and Scoot Henderson, Malcolm Brogdon and Anfernee Simons, they all seemed interchangeable as long as Sacramento kept the ball on the perimeter.

This falls in line with Head Coach Chauncey Billups’ apparent philosophy of taking an opposing team’s strength and clamping down no matter what the cost. Even for a team missing its starting center, Portland’s interior defense was suspect. The Blazers allowed the Kings 62 points in the paint, largely because any drivers or post players ended up single-covered, often on the good side of mismatches. Domantas Sabonis had 34 all by himself. That’s the price Portland paid for shutting down the arc. On this night at least, it worked.

Simons Looks Different

As mentioned above, Anfernee Simons scored 29 on a very Christmas-like 12-25 shooting, not an atypical stat line for him lately. How he got it was slightly different, however. He started the game trying to initiate the offense, as per usual. Sacramento had that read and were prepared to crowd him. But Malcolm Brogdon and Scoot Henderson led the Blazers into an evening of active ball movement that left the ball in the hands of several open shooters around the perimeter, including Simons. Ant looked relaxed and competent receiving the ball for catch-and-shoot attempts. When those started falling, defenders closed harder. At that point he drove past them and began attacking the lane. But even those drives came after the ball had moved, usually.

Full credit to Simons for stepping up and controlling the offense in prior games when the team needed a savior. They don’t need one quite so badly when the ball doesn’t start and end in his hands.

Center of Attention

Moses Brown started the game in the absence of…