The Portland Trail Blazers kept their season alive for at least one more game with a 103-92 home victory over San Antonio on Monday to prevent a Western Conference semi-final sweep at the hands of the top-seeded Spurs.
Having been outclassed in the first three games, the Portland Trail Blazers came alive to cut the best-of-seven series deficit to 3-1, but still face a mountainous task to avoid elimination.
Damian Lillard recorded 25 points and five assists for his best game of the second round, while Nicolas Batum put up 14 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists.
Batum also played tough defense on fellow Frenchman Tony Parker, who led San Antonio with 14 points, his lowest scoring outing of the series.
“I thought Batum was big, he gave them a boost. He was everywhere,” Parker told reporters of his countryman turned opponent. “We’ll have to regroup and play better. They’re not going to give up.”
The Spurs were looking to breeze into the Western Conference finals after being pushed all the way in the first round by the Dallas Mavericks, but Portland had other ideas on Monday, and a 35-20 third-quarter advantage set them on the way to their first win of the series.
Batum sparked the Blazers after halftime by scoring seven straight points — a four-point play, then a three-point shot — to give them a 72-61 advantage. The Blazers extended the margin to 85-68 entering the final period.
Portland’s bench was also critical, as reserve Will Barton chipped in with 17 points.
Tim Duncan got 12 points and nine rebounds for San Antonio, but the Spurs starters played limited minutes as the game got away from them.
San Antonio are still in an ideal position since no NBA team has ever come back from 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series.
“Why not us?” Batum asked.
“We know it’s never been done before. We know it won’t be easy against this team. We’re a young team. We were loose,” Batum said.
The series shifts back to San Antonio, Texas, for Game 5 today where the Spurs will be confident of wrapping up proceedings in front of their home fans.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS