Pacers veer off of the trail, Blazed off of the court in Portland

The Indiana Pacers couldn’t limit the three-point barrage from the Blazers, and they dropped their game in Portland.

The Indiana Pacers fell to the Portland Trail Blazers on a Monday night where nothing went right. Well, for most of the evening, at least. Indiana has historically struggled in Portland and tonight was no different; the Pacers still have not won in the state of Oregon since 2007.

Midway through the second quarter, the Pacers hit their zenith with an 11 point lead and rolled down the hill from there. It was a three-point deluge in the third quarter that ultimately put the Pacers in their watery grave. In the third quarter, the Indiana Pacers shot 60% from the field. However, Portland outscored Indiana 33-24 in the period, where eight Pacer turnovers were killer.

After beginning the game 0-10 from downtown, Portland finished the game 13-22, burning down the nets. A few bizarre happenings kept the scrappy Pacers in the game but they couldn’t claw back far enough, missing key shots down the stretch.

It was a career night for Damian Lillard, whose 30 points and 15 assists marked the first 30-15 game of his already illustrious career. Indiana had no answer after for Lillard’s scoring onslaught and passing ballet, whizzing the ball all over the court. Myles Turner scored 28 points, good for his season high and only three points off of his career high of 31 points. He added 10 rebounds as well.

Myles Turner’s big night

As I previously mentioned, Myles Turner notched his season high in points tonight, dropping in 28. He made good money at the free throw line (8-10) and much of his scoring came off of his usual pick-and-pops.

Turner went 2-6 from the three-point line and 9-17 from the field overall, many of which were long twos. The Pacers were able to exploit Jusuf Nurkic‘s lack of speed on the perimeter to open up shots for a popping Turner. As the lumbering grizzly of a man he is, Nurkic isn’t the most nimble of players, leading him to concede open shots on the perimeter to a stretch big like Turner.

Indiana hedged their bets against Damian Lillard

In order to try (and fail) to slow down the electric Damian Lillard, the Pacers switched up their pick-and-roll coverage tonight, choosing the hard hedge instead of their usual drop coverage. This coverage has the big man covering more ground but it works to stop Lillard from pulling up from three-point range when the defender goes over the screen.

Though this strategy brought some success to limiting Lillard’s deep bombs, he would often split the defenders and find open teammates, resulting in the bevy of open threes Portland shot when Indiana’s defenders failed to scramble properly. This isn’t a tactic Indiana pulls out often, though it was a good idea to reign in one of the league’s most deadly offensive artists.
Road Doug McDermott

On the season, Doug McDermott is shooting 41.1% from range, an expected figure for a marksman like himself. Less expected than that, however, is the baffling dichotomy between his shooting at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse and elsewhere.

At home, McDermott looks like he’s playing on a department store basketball hoop with the lid on it, shooting an ice-cold 31%. On the road, McDermott’s efficiency skyrockets to a staggering 50%; a beyond elite number. The trend kept true tonight, as McDermott rained in four threes en route to 14 big points off of the bench, generating offense when no other Pacer could.

Player grades:

Indiana continues its road trip tomorrow night in the City of Angels to take on the best team in Los Angeles at 10:30 EST, looking to keep their claim on a top-four seed in the East. Hopefully, things go as well as they did the last time the Pacers played the Clippers.