PORTLAND — Long before their epic comeback, the Trail Blazers spent much of Saturday threatening to set new standards for basketball futility.
“What I saw from my team was I thought we were feeling sorry for ourselves,” coach Nate McMillan said. “We had to play the game and get aggressive, get stops, and at least get a rhythm.”
The result was an 84-82 victory over Dallas in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series, forging a 2-2 tie in the series. But it was slow in coming.
After trailing 37-35 at halftime, Portland was outscored 30-14 in the third quarter while shooting 3 of 18 from the field.
That included misses on their first 15 shots, and by the end of the quarter, the Blazers were shooting 29 percent for the game.
The Mavericks’ lead grew to as many as 23 points, and it stood at 67-49 entering the final period. Hardly a harbinger of the 15-for-20 performance the Blazers would deliver in the fourth quarter.
“The two quarters were diametric opposites,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “They were aggressive and they were getting stops, and that fueled their game. It’s a game you shouldn’t lose.”
To put it into perspective, Portland scored 49 points in the first three quarters, then 35 points in the fourth.
“I just kept telling the guys, ‘Look, we’re down 20 points,’ ” the Blazers’ Brandon Roy said. “Let’s play loose and try to give ourselves a chance.
“When we were making that comeback, I never thought we were going to win the game, but I was like, ‘Let’s push and try to put some pressure on them, and keep putting pressure on them to see if we can give ourselves a chance.’ ”
Even before Portland’s impotent third quarter, the Blazers were held to 11 points in the first quarter. Dallas held a 16-11 lead after 12 minutes, as Andre Miller’s six points and Wesley Matthews’ five points accounted for all of Portland’s scoring.
The Blazers didn’t score until more than four minutes into the game, and they finished the quarter with more turnovers (6) than field goals (4).
Then they suffered through a dreadful third quarter.
“Was it over? No, we had 12 minutes,” McMillan said. “You knew that it was going to be tough to come back, but as you can see, anything is possible.”
