Memphis by way of Baltimore? It doesn’t get much grimier than that. So is it any surprise that it was the rugged, skinny kid from Mobtown who had the Blazers’ backs when they needed it the most?
For more than a week now, the Blazers have been wondering what happened to their pride. In Game 4 against the Spurs, it was the inspiring, and improbable, play of Will Barton that showed everyone just what pride looks like.
Barton has seen inconsistent minutes throughout the season (with several DNPs – Coach’s Decision), but due to an untimely injury that has sidelined backup point guard Mo Williams the past two games, the seldom-used reserve guard has suddenly been asked to step into the rotation and give the Blazers meaningful minutes off the bench in a pressure-cooker playoff environment.
His all-around effort in Game 4 was a master class in rising to the occasion. When he wasn’t playing scrappy defense, he was attacking the basket on the other end with his oftentimes erratic, yet unexpectedly-effective moves, and he was the main catalyst for the Blazers’ second unit during much of the first half, scoring eight points on 4-for-6 shooting. He finished with 17 points, six rebounds and two assists (all career playoff-highs, needless to say), and he became the first Blazers’ bench player with a stat line of at least 17 points and six rebounds in a playoff game since Brian Grant did it back in 2000 against Utah.
It was a night punctuated by a big-time alley-oop dunk drawn-up for him during a timeout and even a reluctant three-pointer that rattled in for him almost in spite of himself. Why not? It was just that type of night.
It was fitting, then, that it was Barton who was bringing the ball across midcourt with the game all sewn up late in the second half and getting a well-deserved ovation from the raucous crowd as he took a moment to soak it all in. You could see it on his face, even if he downplayed it after the game.
“I’m always just focused on making winning plays,” Barton said. “I’m not really too concerned about my stats, not how many points I score and things like that, just trying to make winning plays to help our team get a victory.”
For all his aw-shucks heroics, Barton was just one part of a balanced Trail Blazers’ attack and a newfound sense of urgency that helped stave off the Spurs and force Game 5 back in San Antonio tonight.
Nicolas Batum once again flirted with a triple-double with 14 points, 14 rebounds (a career playoff high) and eight assists, while taking on the bulk of the Tony Parker defensive assignment, a configuration that worked wonders–and has some scratching their heads as to why they didn’t figure this out sooner–as Parker was held to 14 points and just one assist.
“He did a good job,” Parker said. “He did a good job, but I got the shots that I wanted. He was great tonight. He was playing very well for them. He was everywhere.”
Damian Lillard seemed to have his swagger back as he (somewhat) recovered from a ghastly shooting slump that started the second he made that miraculous shot against Houston (1-for-13 from behind-the-arc and 37 percent from the field this series going into last night’s game). He finished with 25 points, five assists and four rebounds, and was eager to establish himself early and often.
“It was a completely different feel from the first three games,” Lillard said. “Our backs were up against the wall. We knew that this could have been our last game if we didn’t come out and correct the things that we had been doing wrong over the first three games. I think guys were locked in. Everybody competed. We played physical, we played fast and we got out in transition and we got to the spots on the floor that we like to get to.”
One thing that was completely different was LaMarcus Aldridge’s play against Tiago Splitter, who has been giving him fits all series long. Through the first two games, the normally-efficient Aldridge shot just 8-for-25 (32 percent) against Splitter, including a grim 2-for-13 outing in Game 2, per NBA.com. He jumped on Splitter from the opening tip, forcing Spurs coach Gregg Popovich to switch the assignment over to Boris Diaw, who didn’t fare much better as Aldridge finished with a respectable 19 points on 50 percent shooting from the field.
Keep reading for more on how the Blazers can win Game 5…
Going into the game, the Blazers had held the lead for a grand total of 33 seconds, but all that changed when they stormed out to a 14-8 lead early in the first quarter. By halftime, they were clinging to a two-point lead, but even that was a dramatic improvement for a team that has trailed by 19, 26 and 20 at the half through the first three games.
Tim Duncan finally came alive in the third quarter after a quiet first half, and the Spurs went right back to their bread-and-butter, i.e. running Parker around screens and watching the Blazers’ defense flounder, but after a blistering third-quarter onslaught that started with a crucial sequence from Batum, including a four-point play followed by another three-pointer that pushed the lead to 11, the Blazers never looked back. They outscored the Spurs 35-20 in the third quarter (with zero turnovers) and took a 17-point lead into the final frame.
“I don’t think we played very well in general,” Popovich said. “I thought that they executed better than we did. Fifty-fifty balls, physicality. I thought they were much better than we were tonight. But we were hanging in, as you said, with about five minutes to go in the third quarter. We missed some shots. That’s what it always is. You miss a couple shots, you turn it over a couple times and a five, six-point game ends up being 11, 12, 13 and that’s the deal.”
Aside from simply being more aggressive and running the pick-and-roll more effectively (not to mention making more shots), it’s hard to put a finger on what the Blazers did differently in Game 4. After three straight losses, coach Terry Stotts has been insistent–some might even say stubborn–about his “stay-the-course” edict, that if the Blazers simply “play harder” they’ll find success. The outcome of Game 4 is threatening to make him look like a soothsayer.
“I don’t know from their side, but I do know that we had good energy,” Stotts said. “The crowd was terrific. We fed off of the crowd. But you know, we came out in Game 2 and we had good energy, but it’s a long game. More than anything else in tonight’s game, we were able to sustain our level of play, sustain our focus, sustain our energy for longer periods of time.”
There’s still plenty of work to be done. Lillard continued to struggle fighting through screens and there were defensive lapses all across the board. The team as a whole also grew complacent in the last five minutes of the game, going ice-cold from the field and committing unforced turnovers. Execution down the stretch, even and especially when you’re winning, is something they’ll have to rectify if they want to be serious contenders some day.
But all in all, the Blazers finally showed signs of life as they scratched and clawed their way back from the brink of elimination against an implacable Spurs team that had categorically dominated them up to this point.
A fourth consecutive loss and an early second-round exit seemed like a foregone conclusion heading into Monday night’s affair after digging themselves into a 3-0 hole, so it was a sorely-needed morale boost; however, history isn’t on their side, as no NBA team has ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win a series. They Blazers can, however, take solace in the fact that they are the only team in NBA history to force a Game 7 after being down 3-0, a feat they accomplished back in 2003 before eventually losing their first-round series to Dallas.
It’s all about pride at this point, and that’s something the Blazers showed glimpses of in Game 4 for the first time this series.
Can the Blazers win Game 5?
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