📍PORTLAND, Ore. — The first possession of the second half set the tone for what would become a dispiriting third loss in a row to the Trail Blazers, this one coming against a Clippers team with a single-digit win total.
To open the third quarter, Donovan Clingan missed a layup. Kris Murray grabbed the rebound and kicked it out to Shaedon Sharpe, whose corner three rimmed out. Clingan got that rebound and found Toumani Camara in the other corner. Another miss, and another offensive rebound by Sharpe, who passed to Murray, who threw a pass that was intercepted by Kawhi Leonard. Leonard passed it ahead to James Harden, who kicked it to Brook Lopez, who made the sixth of the nine three-pointers he made on the night. A six-point Blazers halftime lead was now a one-possession game.
From there, Portland completely unraveled. Everything that was working in a solid first half that they controlled wire-to-wire, they went away from. The ball stopped moving, they stopped turning the Clippers over and turned the ball over nine times themselves, often simply by losing it out of bounds.
After losing back-to-back games earlier this week to Detroit and Orlando in the exact same fashion—getting into a hole early, coming all the way back in the fourth quarter and squandering the chance to win with a series of unforced errors and mental mistakes—the Blazers talked about needing to get off to better starts. At least they did that on Friday, if you want to find signs of growth. But it didn't matter in the end.
As the Blazers continue dropping winnable games at home, they're barely clinging to the 10th and final spot in the Western Conference play-in race. They're still playing without a healthy point guard. Deni Avdija is continuing to put up All-Star numbers and carry them offensively most nights, but an uptick in turnovers and a downturn in scoring efficiency is laying bare how overtaxed he is at the moment.
"It's the injuries, my friend," acting head coach Tiago Splitter said Friday night when he was asked if there's something deeper than a lack of bodies that's holding his team back.
Here's the thing: I don't think Splitter is wrong there. I've seen plenty of teams that are broken or checked-out or aren't all on the same page, and this isn't one of them. A lot of their problems, from the lack of playmaking to the overburden on Avdija on offense, would be solved simply by getting healthy.
But there's no telling when that's going to happen.
Jrue Holiday hasn't played in almost six weeks after he suffered a right calf strain in mid-November. That injury was supposed to keep him out for one to two weeks; 19 games later, there's still no clarity on when he might be back on the floor. On Friday, Splitter had the same vague update he's had for several weeks: Holiday is progressing but "not there yet."
Jerami Grant has missed the last four games with left Achilles tendinitis. Splitter said earlier this week that he's considered day-to-day.
Matisse Thybulle was ruled out for four to six weeks after undergoing surgery on his left thumb. That was eight weeks ago, and the updates on his status are similar to Holiday.
And Scoot Henderson, who has been out since the start of training camp with a torn left hamstring, was initially ruled out for four to eight weeks, and then another two to four weeks in a subsequent update, which came five weeks ago. As far as I've heard, he has yet to resume any basketball activities beyond non-contact shooting and weightlifting.
Until there's another definitive update, or any one of these guys is cleared to return, the story is going to be the same as the games keep coming.
There have been some positives from this shorthanded stretch, namely Sidy Cissoko taking advantage of the opportunity and coming into his own as a legitimate rotation player. Eventually, that's going to pay off when he's able to play with Holiday and Henderson, and Splitter isn't forced to give big minutes to players like Rayan Rupert and Caleb Love, whose roles were never supposed to be as big as they've been.
The Blazers need Holiday, Grant and Henderson back. But the players who are playing need to find a way to win some of these games in front of them in the meantime, or else the season will slip away.
"We're a really good team," Avdija said. "The only thing that's really missing is those times when we lose focus and they go on a run, we've got to cut it.
"We're just figuring it out. Everybody's in different positions. We're making stuff [on the fly]. It's not easy. We don't have a lot of time to practice. We're doing the most with the time we have. I think we're doing good, we've just got to be more focused."
