PORTLAND — Prior to Thursday night’s game, Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel joked that the Portland Trail Blazers had cloned Damian Lillard with CJ McCollum.
A few hours later, the Blazers backcourt had the Pacers seeing double.
Lillard and McCollum combined to score 47 points and dish out 14 assists in a 123-111 victory over the Pacers, snapping Indiana’s six-game winning streak.
The vision problems may explain why Indiana’s Paul George, the Eastern Conference Player of the Month in November, shot so poorly.
Averaging over 27 points per game coming in and shooting 47 percent from long-range, George went 4-for-17 from the field, scoring just 11 points and failing to hit a 3-pointer.
Blazers center Ed Davis has another idea as to how to contain George.
“Put Chief on him,” Davis said, referencing the individual defense of Al-Farouq Aminu on George. “He held it down. That’s how we do it.”
“You just have to try and limit (George’s) touches, making it tough and doing your work early before the catches the ball,” Aminu said. “Make it tough so he had to exhaust a lot of energy before he touches the ball.”
After the game, George said he felt a little sluggish after playing 40 minutes the previous night in Los Angeles, but the Blazers were happy to take advantage.
It was a welcome night of on-court success for Aminu after having easily his worst game of the season in Tuesday loss to Dallas, where he played just 19 minutes and was held without a field goal.
After going through a stretch where he missed 14 of 15 3-point attempts, Aminu connected twice from deep in a 41-point third quarter that eventually propelled the Blazers to a win over one of the hottest teams in the league.
When he hit the first, Aminu let out of his trademark screams.
“It felt good, not for myself in a sense but for my teammates,” Aminu said.
Allen Crabbe pitched in 18 points off the bench.
For the third straight game, the Blazers bench salvaged them from a poor start, putting them in position to win.
But this time when their opponent made a charge in the fourth quarter, the Blazers held firm.
The Pacers cut Portland’s double-digit second half lead to just two with 6:52 left but the Blazers answered with an 18-8 run to close the game.
Meyers Leonard made some 3-pointers, helping to space the court and Ed Davis’ energy was infectious. It also helped that the Blazers simply matched-up better with the Pacers reserves.
When Leonard, Davis and Crabbe were on the court together, the Blazers outscored the Pacers by 11 points in 16 minutes, according to NBA.com.
With the Pacers so focused on trying to contain Lillard and McCollum, it opened things up for Leonard, Crabbe and Aminu to take aim from the outside.
“Those are guys that wasn’t on our radar as 3-point shooters,” George said. “You see guys like Damian and CJ catch fire, it kind of goes across the whole team.”
The Pacers went to their “spread” line-up to start the game, playing the 6-6 CJ Miles at power forward, and began the game on a 10-0 run.
CJ Miles was the catalyst for the Pacers great start, lighting up the Blazers from the outside with eight 3-pointers.
Miles led the Pacers with 27 points.
But when the Pacers went to a more traditional look, things went in favor of the Blazers.
Neither team could stop each other, but Portland’s key players stepped up when Indiana’s didn’t.
Against the Pacers, also one of the league’s top defenses, McCollum and Lillard showed once again how tough of a tandem they can be to stop.
Unlike Tuesday’s game, Stotts stuck with Noah Vonleh and the starters in the 2nd half. His confidence was rewarded with a 23-12 run in the first 7:10 of the quarter.
