The Portland Trail Blazers faced the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night without center Jusuf Nurkic, defense, or much of a sense of continuity. Portland would be expected to handle the Thunder easily. Those expectations were wrong. On a night when Damian Lillard broke Clyde Drexler’s All-Time franchise scoring record and Jerami Grant left an indent on the rim from repeated dunking, nearly everything else for the Blazers fell flat.
The game was nip-and-tuck after the mid-first quarter, with neither team gaining separation on the scoreboard. It stayed within one or two points clear through the final minutes, making the outcome a coin flip.