Damian Lillard and Blazers clock Warriors, spoil Draymond Green’s return in San Francisco 123-98 on New Year’s Day
By Emmanuel Rivera, RRT PhilBoxing.com Sun, 03 Jan 2021
January 2, 2020
San Francisco, California
Draymond Green’s return last night posed more questions than answers as the Warriors fall to the red-hot Portland Trailblazers. With a return bout looming tomorrow, January 3 at Chase Center, Green and the retooled Warriors better find more answers than questions quickly.
Three hundred and seven days since his previous appearance, the Warrior star looked asynchronous and rusty going scoreless for the first time (0-for-2 from the field) 4 rebounds and 4 assists in 19 minutes of play.
The entire Warriors team looked just as flat on offense and defense.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr sounded circumspect about his star forward and his team who didn’t resemble the squad that beat the Bulls in Chicago for their second win this season, “He needs a few games under his belt to get that conditioning and rhythm. There’s no question it’s going to take some time.”
Portland outshot the Warriors from the field 43.5% (40/92) to 39.2% (31/79) and a more telling 46.5% (20/43) to 20% (7/35) from downtown.
Steph Curry turned in 26 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists in 34 minutes while shooting 9-for 10 total and only 4-for-12 beyond the 3-point arc.
Credit Portland’s dynamic duo Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum who scored 62 points together on 22-for-42 from the field.
The Blazers struck early shooting eight 3-pointers busting a 20-point lead just 9 minutes into the game.
“The start of the game was very disappointing. We just didn’t have much energy and they came out smoking hot. They were making everything,” said head coach Steve Kerr on NBA TV.
The Warriors managed to lead by 2 briefly and even cut the lead to single digits, but Portland blazed to a wide-points victory leading us much as 31 points.
Portland’s Damian Lillard scored 34 points, thus joining hall-of-fame player Clyde Drexler as one of two players to score 15,000 points as a Blazer.
“Fifteen thousand is a huge accomplishment, something that I’m proud of but my work is far from done,” Lillard said.
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