Insult to Injury: Blazers Fall to Lowly Timberwolves

Saturday, March 07, 2015

Andrew R Tonry, GoLocalPDX Contributor

TIMBERWOLVES 121, BLAZERS 113

LaMarcus Aldridge made a bet, daring Ricky Rubio to shoot the three.

He--and the Trail Blazers--lost.

By the numbers, though, Aldridge made the right decision. Rubio, a notoriously poor marksmen, has been shooting 28% from beyond the arc this season.

This attempt though, with 1:00 remaining in the fourth quarter, rattled in. It gave the Timberwolves a seven point lead. And while the Blazers continued to fight, Rubio's improbable make proved to be the difference. The gap was just too wide.

That the Timberwolves (13-47) were in any position to win is a sobering disappointment to the Blazers, who led by 10 points in the second quarter, and should've polished Minnesota off then and there.

Instead, Saturday's loss added insult to injury. A game after losing Wesley Matthews to a season-ending rupture of his achilles tendon, Matthews' teammates fought harder to win one for their devastated comrade.

Instead they coughed up one of the season's more ignominious defeats.

Saturday's loss too tarnished Portland's prior five-game win-streak, which included four victories over Western Conference teams bound for the playoffs. Losing to the lowly Timberwovles is akin to throwing away one of those solid performances.

And to be sure: the Blazers missed Matthews' defensive tenacity Saturday, as the Wolves shot a lights-out 54% from the field and 57% from distance.

But what they really missed was his heart.

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C+	LaMarcus Aldridge After Thursday's game LaMarcus Aldridge called Wesley Matthews the Trail Blazers' "heart and soul." On Saturday, with Matthews out, it would've been nice to see Aldridge come with some extra fire, to put the team on his back--you know, to make a statement and reassure the troops. That didn't happen. Instead, Saturday, Aldridge was just plain OK. He made half his 20 attempts from the field, but didn't get the job done on the glass, where the Timberwolves made hay. Aldridge had eight boards to go along with 21 points.
B	Nicolas Batum Batum continues to look more and more confident. He's not hesitating to shoot, and he's making them. He began by drilling his first three attempts from downtown. He continued another heartening trend as well: setting the table for teammates as a play-making point forward on pick-and-rolls. Though Batum did most of his damage early, his line of 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists is commendable.
C	Robin Lopez Not a whole lot of action for Lopez, who had seven points and five rebounds in 28 minutes. Though three of those boards came on the offensive end, the Blazers could've used more help on the glass.
C+	Arron Afflalo Starting in place of Matthews and playing the same rotation minutes, Afflalo fit in rather seamlessly. He made 3-of-5 three-point attempts (a good sign) but failed to get a single rebound (a bad sign) and had one assist. He also fouled out. Still, a solid performance for a guy being asked to do a lot with a team he hardly knows.
A-	Damian Lillard Lillard's 32 points were heavily inflated, as he scored 11 of them in the final minute. It was a furious rally, but predictable, as the Wolves chased him off the line and allowed him to drive. Maybe we'd look at it differently if the Wolves hadn't made the corresponding free throws, but they did. One can't argue, however, with Lillard's accompanying seven rebounds and eight assists.