Dončić Delivered 41. Portland Kept Finding Another Answer

Luka Dončić hit a long three with 3:24 remaining Tuesday, pulling the Lakers within a point. Deni Avdija answered with a three on Portland’s next scoring possession. Los Angeles had a spectacular scorer. The Trail Blazers kept presenting it with another bill.

That exchange helps explain a 136-129 Portland victory better than a complaint about Dončić needing to do more. The former Dallas Mavericks star finished with 41 points and nine assists, shooting 12-for-22. Los Angeles outscored Portland by seven during his 36:45 on the floor. A performance that productive can still end in defeat when the opponent has this many ways to answer.

Dončić’s scoring was hardly an exercise in collecting points through endless misses. He made six of his 15 three-point attempts, hit 11 of 13 foul shots and turned the ball over twice. Austin Reaves added 26 points on 13 field-goal attempts and supplied seven assists. Together they scored 67. The Lakers’ problem was not a shortage of successful possessions from those two guards.

Portland had four players with at least 21 points: Ja Morant and Avdija scored 23 each, Jrue Holiday had 22 and Damian Lillard finished with 21. That breadth mattered late, when a Los Angeles basket did not force the Blazers to wait for one particular player to manufacture a reply.

The closing minutes featured Lillard, Avdija and Morant supplying different answers to the same urgent question.

After Reaves tied the game at 121 with 3:49 left, Lillard made a three and then a technical free throw. Dončić’s three reduced that four-point deficit to one. Avdija pushed it back to four, and Ziaire Williams answered for the Lakers from beyond the arc.

Morant then scored on a floater. The Lakers were making shots; Portland was still adding enough at the other end to retain the advantage.

There was a less glamorous opportunity for Los Angeles amid those exchanges. Walker Kessler missed both free throws with 1:44 remaining and the Lakers behind 130-127. Morant subsequently scored again, and Dončić’s pull-up brought Los Angeles within 132-129 at 1:06. Individual misses did not account for the whole loss, but those unused chances were costly in a finish with so little room between possessions.

The shooting figures make the result more uncomfortable for the Lakers. They converted 56.3 percent of their field-goal attempts and still lost. Portland made 59 percent, including half of its 36 tries from three. The Blazers also led the rebound count 38-31. Los Angeles could produce efficient offense without establishing enough resistance or collecting enough missed shots to make that offense decisive.

Dončić’s positive plus-minus is an important restraint on the easy criticism. The Lakers were seven points better than Portland during his minutes and seven worse over the entire game. The corresponding deficit while he sat was 14.

Those are shared lineup results, not proof that he alone made one group function or that every other player failed. They do make blaming the defeat on an insufficient scoring effort from him particularly unconvincing.

Nor was Dončić flawless in the closing stretch. After Lillard’s step-back three with 43 seconds left extended Portland’s lead to six, Dončić missed a three. Ziaire Williams secured the offensive rebound, giving Los Angeles another chance, but Reaves missed the next long attempt and Holiday collected the rebound. The Lakers had two chances to cut the margin on that possession and converted neither.

Dallas knows Dončić’s capacity to carry an offense from his Mavericks years, including the run to the 2024 Finals. Tuesday supplied another imposing individual night, rather than a reason to relitigate that history. Portland survived it by continuing to score through several players. The last decisive three belonged to Lillard, and Los Angeles’ two subsequent attempts found no answer.

Sources

NBA: official final box score

NBA: official play-by-play

NBA: Mavericks trade background