The Portland Trail Blazers faced the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night looking to keep an improbably-great late-season road trip pristine at 5-0. Unfortunately, that wasn’t destined to be. Portland came out of the gate flat-footed and never really recovered. Throughout the game, their defense looked closer to pre-road-trip than perfection. Scoring by Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum kept them in it for three quarters. Every time the Blazers got down, their starting guards would engineer a flurry to bring them back. But in the end, they couldn’t overcome 20-41 three-point shooting from Atlanta, falling 123-114
With the loss, the Blazers drop to 36-29 in the ultra-tight Western Conference playoffs race.