Once the Portland Trail Blazers got things rolling, it became impossible for the Indiana Pacers to slow them down, resulting in one of the worst beatdowns of the year for the short-handed Pacers. Portland, aided by some ridiculous three point shooting, outscored Indiana 79-43 across the middle two quarters, including 40-16 in the third alone.
Anfernee Simons highlighted the barrage of threes, hitting his first nine attempts to score 27 points as Portland made 20 overall. That alone more or less sums it up but the need to honor both Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter inside allowed the Blazers much easier attempts, though there were definitely stretches where it didn’t seem to matter.