Trail Blazers outgun Raptors as Powell flashes potential with Portland

The Toronto Raptors scored just 10 points in the third quarter as the Portland Trail Blazers capitalized in the second half to win 122-117.

The Portland Trail Blazers didn’t need Norman Powell to have a revenge game against his old team. And they didn’t have to worry about the newest Toronto Raptors causing them any problems.

Nope. Portland had too many weapons and the Raptors were outmanned and outgunned in the first meeting between the two teams that connected on one of the highest-profile moves on Thursday's trade deadline day. Portland left Tampa Bay with a 122-117 win that was both hard-fought and seemingly never in doubt once the Trail Blazers took control midway through the third quarter.

Playing his first game against the team with whom he had played his entire six-year career, Powell finished with just 13 points and took six shots in 27 minutes, while Rodney Hood and Gary Trent Jr., who came the other way in the deal, chipped in with 19 points – 13 and six, respectively. Trent Jr. started and ended up guarding Powell, and vice versa, but the pre-game subplot never really materialized in any meaningful way, save for one moment in the third quarter when the emotions bubbled up a bit.

Powell broke up a dribble hand-off at the top of the circle midway through the third quarter and took it the other way for a dunk, making sure to stare down the Raptor bench as he circled back. The play gave Portland the lead and it never trailed again.

“I thought he was looking at me, but he said he wasn’t,” said Fred VanVleet, his good friend. “I told him, ‘I didn’t trade you. I don’t know what you are mad at me for.’ But Norm is such an emotional guy in a good way. He wears his heart on his sleeve and it was good to see him. It was really weird playing against him, but, obviously, wish him nothing but the best going forward.”

The game did tighten up down the stretch. The Raptors were down 11 with 7:40 to play and stormed back to within a point with 2:28 to go before Blazers guard CJ McCollum scored seven quick points. But the Raptors had it down to five with 26 seconds left and remained alive when Powell missed two free throws that could've iced it. Powell ripped his jersey in frustration. But after VanVleet drove past Powell for a layup to make it a three-point game, the latter made his next two free throws and Toronto couldn’t pull off a minor miracle in the waning seconds.

Otherwise, Powell made some slow-footed fouls in the first half – a familiar theme – and never got rolling the way Toronto knows he can.

The Raptors did well against Portland’s Damian Lillard and McCollum, holding one of the league’s best backcourts to 43 points, or about 22 under their combined season average. But Portland had five other players in double figures, including their entire starting lineup. It seemed like Toronto was trying to patch holes everywhere and when one was covered up another would spring open.

“It’s tough, man but you got to take away something,” said VanVleet, who scored 11 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, but was just 3-of-13 from the floor in the other three periods. “I thought, for the most part, we guarded Dame pretty well, 7-for-21, I think he shoots a pretty good percentage, so we made it tough on him. He got a lot of that in the second half. CJ got at least six or eight late in the fourth. We guarded those guys pretty well. It’s just Derrick Jones 7-for-9, (Enes) Kanter 5-for-8, some of those guys made some big shots, but you got to give up something. We’re selling out trying to take away two of the better scorers in the league and we just got to do a better job of rotating and cleaning up the offensive glass and things like that. All in all, we’re fighting hard enough. It’s just at some point we gotta turn the switch here to see how we can clean it up.”

The Raptors got 26 points and eight rebounds from Pascal Siakam and 19 points from OG Anunoby, although his seven turnovers hurt. They were clearly missing some offensive punch at times, not only with Powell playing for the other team but with Kyle Lowry out with a sore foot. Pat McCaw (knee) and DeAndre Bembry and Paul Watson (health and safety protocols) were also out.

The Raptors dropped to 18-28 with the defeat, which is their 13th loss in their past 15 games and leaves them mired in 11th place. Portland improved to 28-18.

The game unravelled in the third quarter when the Raptors' offence fell off a cliff. After going up by seven midway through the period, the Raptors managed just one field goal in the next five minutes and found themselves down by 10 as Portland put together a 19-2 run that was more indicative of the Toronto’s offensive woes than what the Trail Blazers were doing offensively. Toronto held Portland to just 37 per cent shooting in the third, but still fell behind as it shot just 4-of-22 and scored 10 points.

Powell didn’t exactly put on a show against his former team, but it takes little imagination to see how his ability to score at a high rate with the kind of efficiency that meshes well with other high-usage scorers will make the Trail Blazers a tough out in the playoffs.

The Trail Blazers, having seen Powell put up 22 points in 13 shots in his debut Friday, see big things ahead and a chance to double down on one of the most guard-heavy attacks in the NBA

“I think the quality of shots, the quality of our three-point shots will improve,” said Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. “Because of him, I think the one thing that he really adds in addition to shooting is he really moves well without the ball and when Dame and CJ are able to penetrate, he'll find open spots. So I think from an offensive standpoint, it makes us even harder to guard.”

The half couldn’t have worked out better for the Raptors, and, in particular, those with a vested interest in the trade working out in their favour as they led 41-32 after the first quarter and 74-68 at the half.

With Powell likely to decline his player option and head into free agency, Toronto had to calculate what the market might be for someone who has averaged 21 points a game and shot 45 per cent from three over 58 starts going back to last season. The concern was that Powell would be shopping for a deal in the $18-million to $20-million range annually and Toronto didn't want to have to go that high for a player it had deemed increasingly one-dimensional as his attention to detail on defence faded as his offensive game grew.

As if on cue, there was Powell picking up two quick fouls, one getting beaten to the spot by Trent Jr., who he started out guarding, and then an unwise reach in against his old pal Siakam that saw Powell head to the bench before the game was five minutes old. Any possibility that Powell would show up his old team with one of his trademark first-quarter explosions was out the window.

Better to replace his production with the younger Trent Jr. and maybe even a rehabilitated Hood, who averaged 13 points a game and provided solid, switchable defence in the previous six seasons in Utah, Cleveland and Portland before he tore his Achilles early in the 2019-20 season.

If there was an encouraging development for the Raptors on the night, it might have been Hood, who looks like a good two-way addition and more like the player who averaged 13 points a game over the previous eight seasons than the one who had struggled to find his confidence in his return from the devastating injury. His best moment came just before halftime when he hounded Lillard into a miss, sprinted the floor to set up for a corner three and knocked it down – complete with a fist pump – just before the horn.

“I think that could be a significant part of the trade,” said Nurse. “Some points it already kind of looks like it might be and I think it's given some flexibility to some subbing and being a little bit bigger around the edges.”

At this stage of the Raptors' season, they’ll take their bright spots where they can find them.

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