The Portland Trail Blazers faced their first game without All-Star guard Damian Lillard (groin injury) tonight, hosting Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans. Portland put up a respectable 115 points without their leading scorer, but they barely defended, never led, and ultimately fell to the Pelicans 128-115. It wasn’t a pretty effort, but it wasn’t markedly worse than many of Portland’s outings this season.
CJ McCollum and Carmelo Anthony came out looking to score early, obviously presenting Portland’s best options. (The other ones were honestly pretty ugly at this point.