The Blazers won the swish3 contest at TOR Mar 1 scoring 14 of 33 vs TOR 10 of 28 in the 119-117 loss. This was a close game in which the Blazers fought back from being 16 points down in Q3 to taking the lead in Q4 with flashes of good defense, but lost it on a Kawhi 12 foot FG with 7 sec left. There were seriously flawed ref calls, especially charging fouls against us (e.g., Nurk and Jake) that were called oppositely against us at the other end at strategic points and notable no calls of fouls of Dame, Nurk, Chief, Mo, Meyers, Seth, Jake, and Rod that changed the momentum. After the 1st half, we had 17 fouls vs TOR 7 which was obviously badly skewed. This was a tough loss after the refreshing 4th Q recovery.
CJ led scoring 7 of 11, Dame scored 3 of 6, Chief scored 2 of 3, Seth scored 1 of 3, and Jake scored 1 of 4. Meyers and Zach were each 0 of 1, and Mo and Rod were each 0 of 2. One more swish3 would have won the game. The Blazers misused Meyers in this game, ignoring him open in the corners for highly probable swish3 scores that would have won the game. Meyers played only in the 1st half and got only 1 feed for the dunk, but could have scored 12+ points if there were assists and plays for him. Nurk scored 10, Meyers scored 2, and Zach scored 0, giving the Center position only 12 points in this game. I would have played Meyers also in the 4th Q for swish3 scoring, and because Gasol was manhandling Zach badly. Meyers was doing better against Gasol and Ibaka. We need to call on Meyers for swish3 scoring that should be averaging 9+ points in games like this to get wins in the Playoffs.
This was an encouraging game showing Blazer progression because of the comeback in the 4th Q relying on determined defense and offense showing improving team chemistry. TOR played well, ending up with 55.6% FGA to get the ref assisted win, and the game was fun to watch. The victory was so close and would have been so sweet. Let's start the new winning streak of 7+!