Trail Mix: Blazers 102, Pelicans 93

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The Portland Trail Blazers came back from as much as 16 points down to defeat the New Orleans Pelicans at the Moda Center on Monday night.

We also have a notebook in Tuesday’s Columbian.

• The Trail Blazers were basically dominated by Anthony Davis and the Pels in the first three quarters. The Pelicans seemed to go away from Davis and Portland found themselves offensively. A lot of that had to do with Aldridge trying to find himself after coming back from an upper respiratory illness. Aldridge seemed to be looking for his rhythm but found it later on in the game. Stotts addressed the Blazers slow start offensively.
• But first of all lets get to some New Orleans quotes from tonight. Tyreke Evans on what changed in the fourth quarter, “I don’t know. We just weren’t executing, it wasn’t going for us and the shots weren’t falling. We were just trying to get a bucket at the end and on the road we just have to do a better job at that.” Like getting the ball to Anthony Davis? The Brow said, “No, there’s other scorers, we just want to win. Whoever gets the ball, as long as it goes in the bucket then that’s all that matters. Like I said, we had good looks but missed opportunities.”
• Here’s what Monty Williams said on the game turning so quickly. “On the road it’s tougher to control. The momentum swung…they were physical on defense. They made plays, amnd they moved the ball. We didn’t. When Matthews got the ball, there was no question about passing the ball to him. In the fourth quarter we became a one-on-one ship, and you can’t play like that on defense.”
• A couple of odd Pelicans observations down the stretch. Aldridge started seeing more Ryan Anderson than Anthony Davis down the stretch. Lopez was playing better but it might leave some wondering why Davis, who plays Aldridge as well anyone, didn’t cover him in crunch time. Also, Holiday and Evans went a combined 0-for-14. The Blazers may have snuffed out their pet play but not getting the ball to Davis more in the fourth quarter is probably something they’ll regret. Davis had racked up 25 in three quarters against the Blazers and only took five shots the rest of the way.
• A lot of the game story from Monday was about Robin Lopez and his defense in the fourth quarter. One nuggets that didn’t make the game story was Steve Blake talking about how Lopez cleaned up the Blazers junk on defense. “We just really dug in deep played really solid defense. THey were playing three guards most of the time out there so we kind of match-ed up with them. RoLo was huge. Guards were really able to push into their guys and send them to the big man and he was cleaning things up for us. That was a big factor.”
• While the shot selection for the Pelicans will probably be dissected more than the Blazers defense, Portland has made a trend of stopping teams in the early season. The Pelicans came in with a top-five offense and Portland has already slowed down a few top offenses this year. Lillard says the team has more confidence in their defense. “I think we do. We’re comfortable with each other and communicating with each other. We know we are more comfortable in our schemes and what we need to do defensively and we’re just you know attacking it and more comfortable with it now.” Here was Aldridge’s take on coming back from big deficits twice in a week. “We want to do that often, but I’m thakful these two times that we’ve done it, we definitely stepped up and played better defense. We gutted it out. Some nights your offense is going to take time to get started, but your defense can always be there. Tonight, our offense kind of sputtered in the first half but our defense definitely picked in the second half.”
• Aldridge, as he was clearly still sounding congested after coming back from an upper respiratory illness on Monday, was glowing with praise by his standards. “Gutsy. I like it. It shows that we have growth. Every game can’t be a blowout or an easy win, so I thought tonight wen our backs were up against a wall, guys played well. Guys stepped up and played better D. Our team defense got better in the second half and even more in the fourth quarter. I think good teams have to learn how to win games like that and we did tonight.
• Aldridge’s match-up Anthony Davis was game’s most impressive player. Here were Aldridge’s thoughts on The Brow: “He’s good. He has a high motor. He runs the floor hard. He’s kind of like Blake two years ago with the high motor running the floor, trying to dunk everything. He’s great defensively blocking shots. He’s good.” Aldridge is now 4-3 against Davis in 7 games.
• Robin Lopez is good friends with New Orleans’ Ryan Anderson. He said he didn’t talk a lot of trash to him. “He’s not as dirty as Brook. He’s far more huggable. I can’t help but smile when I see that guy. That ruffian, that ragamuffin.” When Lopez was then asked if he hugged Anderson, he dryly replied, “I feel like that’s a little personal.”
• Here’s the full quote from Lopez describing the “rub-stack” high pick and roll play I talked about in the game story. Stotts said the Blazers couldn’t stop in the first half and gave credit to Lopez for “figuring out.” Lopez said, “there was a rub-stack high pick and roll with both of the bigs where they would screen the first big. We had some miscommunications as to what we were doing up top. Came in at halftime and we figured it out. We started talking about it at halftime.” The Blazers do similar actions in their offense but for whatever reason, probably Davis, the Blazers had trouble stopping it until they did.
• When the Blazers were struggling, the threat of Nicolas Batum making plays on the other side of actions was noticeably absent. While the Blazers replacements of Batum have played amicably, the Frenchmen alleviates pressure off of Lillard and conversely puts it on the defense. Much easier to notice those Batum and Lopez pick and rolls when they’re not there. “Offensively I know without Nico and who is usually the other guy making plays other than myself using ball screens that I would have to find a way,”said Lillard, who followed up his first Western Conference Player of the Week award with 24 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds. “With all those big guys out there it was tough. I just focused on trying to get into the paint and find guys. Steve hit a big shot. LA started to get going. And we found ourselves back in the game.”