Northwest Notes: Hansen, Mara, Lyles, Nuggets

The Trail Blazers didn’t face much adversity during the early part of the season, but that changed over the weekend with back-to back losses to the Lakers and Spurs, writes Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report (subscriber link). Portland looked overmatched against a pair of MVP favorites, as Luka Doncic poured in 53 points on Friday and Victor Wembanyama followed that with 29 points in 24 minutes on Saturday while dominating the game on defense.

“The start of the third quarter, we were awful,” coach Micah Nori said after Saturday’s game. “We got one or two stops, and then it was … the turnovers again, and just we looked kind of out of sorts. First time all year. If you want to find excuse,…