Portland no answer

OAKLAND, Calif. — Though Game 1 felt like a blowout with the Golden State Warriors in control, the Portland Trail Blazers showed during the final three quarters of that game that they could play with the defending champs. The Blazers actually outscored the Warriors 89-81 after the first quarter.

It was just those first 12 minutes of that game in which the Warriors came out throwing haymakers. The Blazers couldn’t catch their breath until they found themselves in too deep of a hole.

You knew Portland’s Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum wouldn’t have back-to-back bad games. You knew coach Terry Stotts was going to adjust the pressure on the perimeter and try to slow down Klay Thompson. You knew the Blazers had an answer for what the Warriors did to them. It was just a matter of executing that answer for the full 48 minutes.

That’s always the tricky part with facing the Warriors. You can be better for a half. You can be better for three quarters. But if you can’t contain that one monster stretch the Warriors inevitably put out there, well, then you can’t beat Golden State.

The knockout blow is the toughest to deliver. And the Blazers couldn’t do it a 110-99 loss in Game 2 at Oracle Arena, falling behind 2-0 in the series.

“We had them on the ropes,” McCollum said. “Didn’t knock them out. That’s what good teams do. They hung around and they make a run in the fourth quarter. We weren’t able to sustain.”

Factor in that the Warriors were without Stephen Curry and it felt like the Blazers had a perfect opportunity to steal one at Oracle. That’s something only a couple of teams have done this season, and if anybody was going to be able to do it, it …

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