Trail Blazers Play Careless With Ball; Lose to Heat 107-98

A day after trouncing the Pistons, it was back to struggling against quality teams for the Portland Trail Blazers, who fell to the Miami Heat 107-98.

Portland turned the ball over on their first three possessions of the game, an indicator for how the night was going to go. The Trail Blazers struggled to take care of the ball all night, committing 17 turnovers that led to 28 Miami points. To make matters worse, Portland went only 11-35 (35%) from behind the 3-point line, with several of the makes coming from the reserves after the game was already decided.

With former teammate Trevor Ariza draped on him all evening long, Damian Lillard struggled to score 12 points on 3/1o shooting. Normal Powell and CJ McCollum tied for the team lead with 17 points each. Center Jusuf Nurkic scored six points and had nine rebounds in 22 minutes of action. His minutes restriction was lifted from 20 to 25, but he exited the game briefly late in the first half with a sacral contusion. Backup center Enes Kanter took a hard shoulder to the head from teammate Derrick Jones Jr. and laid on the court for several minutes before leaving the game for good in the third quarter.

Up next for the Trail Blazers, Jason Tatum and the Boston Celtics come to town on Tuesday night.