The New Orleans Pelicans have taken a big step towards the second round. After a dominant 119:102 win (BOXSCORE) over the Portland Trail Blazers, they now only need one victory. Anthony Davis clearly outshines Damian Lillard once again.
Who would have thought that before the start of the series? The Pelicans have opened the door to the second round – after the dominant performance in game 3, a sweep seems realistic at the moment. At the best time the Pelicans play their best basketball and have obviously licked blood.
After the two defeats in Portland, the Blazers had actually travelled to New Orleans with anger in their stomach – and of course with pressure. The actually favored 3-seed had long since stood with his back to the wall in this game and had set himself a lot accordingly. Especially the two star guards Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum wanted to forget their weak performances.
At least one of them succeeded in doing so, in the first half McCollum in particular showed a clear improvement (14 points, 6/10 FG). However, it hardly played a role: The Pelicans seem to have fueled uncanny self-confidence with their two away victories. The first six minutes were still balanced, but from that point on NOLA was almost intoxicated. Within less than seven minutes a 16:16 turned into 36:20, at the break it was already 64:45.
The blazers were just offensively lacking the means. Lillard remained far below his possibilities, besides McCollum only Al-Farouq Aminu played convincingly with 15 points, while Jusuf Nurkic and Maurice Harkless (2 points each) were almost unusable. Speaking of useless: The Bank of Blazers did not score a single point in the first half. So, of course, they could not present the euphoric and balanced pelicans with problems.
Also with the Pelicans the bank was not a big factor, but the starters were almost all in a really good mood. First and foremost in this case was Nikola Mirotic: The Spanish international scored an incredibly effective 30 points (12/15 FG!) with 8 rebounds.
Anthony Davis was able to take back a little bit for his circumstances and concentrate more on the defense, but he padded up his points account again in the last quarter and finally came in at 28 points and 11 rebounds (as well as 3 steals and 2 blocks). The backcourt consisting of Jrue Holiday (16 points) and Rajon Rondo with 16 points and 11 assists was also very popular.
Portland had no answer. In the second half they were no closer than 15 points, in the last quarter the lead was almost 20 points. The frustration was particularly apparent to Lillard (20 points, 5/14 FG, 8 turnovers). McCollum scored 22 points, Aminu finished the game with 21.
Even if nobody would have expected it: On Saturday evening (11 pm) the Pelicans will again have the chance to perfect the sweep in game 4 at the Smoothie King Center.