Portland Blazers vs LA Lakers: The Final Score

Portland Blazers vs LA Lakers: The Final Score

Damian Lillard scored 41 points, Jerami Grant made a driving layup with three seconds left, and the unbeaten Portland Path Blazers saved the Los Angeles Lakers from winless beneath new coach Darvin Ham with a 106-104 victory Sunday.

Portland trailed 102-95 with 1:56 to play, however, ended the game on an 11-2 run and received it when LeBron James missed a 17-footer on the buzzer.

Lillard carried the Blazers for lengthy stretches, scoring 12 factors within the ultimate 5:06 earlier than Grant completed it. After lacking the ultimate 47 games in a final season with accidents, Lillard has scored 41 factors in Portland’s second and third games of the brand-new season. He additionally continued his longtime domination of the Lakers, bettering his profession common of 28 factors per recreation.

“Clearly, Dame is again and he’s just about placing the league on discover,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups mentioned.

Patrick Beverley, James and Russell Westbrook all missed pictures for LA down the stretch. After Anfernee Simons hit a leaning layup over Anthony Davis with 36 seconds left to trim Portland’s deficit to 102-101, Westbrook curiously shot and missed a 15-footer with 27 seconds to play and about 16 seconds left on the shot clock, capping his 4-for-15 day from the sphere.

Lillard then drilled his sixth 3-pointer, however, James drove straight via the paint for an uncontested tying dunk with 7.7 seconds to go.

Grant, who completed with 16 factors, drove and scored the tiebreaking bucket. James had an honest look at the basket on the ultimate play, however could not join.

“All of us trusted the subsequent man to do their job,” Lillard mentioned. “We have been in a position to get stops, not flip the ball over and hit our pictures.”

James had 31 factors, eight rebounds and eight assists, whereas Davis completed with 22 factors, 10 rebounds and 6 blocked pictures for the Lakers (0-3).

“We have been getting among the identical pictures (down the stretch) we have been getting (earlier),” James mentioned. “Simply did not make them. (Westbrook) received some beauty and wasn’t in a position to knock them down. Defensively, we could not get a number of stops in a row. And Dame was Dame down the stretch.”

Lonnie Walker scored 15 factors and Westbrook had 10 for Los Angeles. Westbrook mentioned he took his remarkably early jumper within the ultimate minute as a 2-for-1 to verify the Lakers would get the ultimate possession.

Westbrook sat out for 11 straight clock minutes till returning down the stretch, and the Blazers repeatedly guarded him with 7-foot Jusuf Nurkic, who was instructed to put off the 2017 NBA MVP in a possible bid to drive Westbrook to beat them. Westbrook missed each of his fourth-quarter pictures.

The Clippers additionally defended Westbrook with a middle on Thursday night time, hurting the Lakers’ offensive spacing.