Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from big Game 4 win vs. Thunder

3. A great night for the role players

The postgame statistics will show that the Thunder bench outscored Portland’s 32-18 on Sunday night. However, the role players that needed to step up did so to help the Blazers secure the win.

To illustrate this point, it’s better to look at the scoring margin between the top three scorers for each team outside of the stars. For Portland, Aminu (19), Harkless (15) and Zach Collins (10 off the bench) combined for 44 points. Meanwhile, for OKC, Schroder (17 off the bench), Jerami Grant (11) and Raymond Felton (eight off the bench) came together for 36 points.

Aminu’s jump shot was steady (4-of-9 from 3) while he continued to be a pest on the boards (nine rebounds) and the defensive end. Harkless’ 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals showed how active he was, despite his rough shooting night (5-of-13 from the field). Zach Collins also continues to deliver steady production off the bench, as his playoff field goal percentage now sits at 69.2 percent on 13 total shot attempts.

It’s always great for the superstars to have big nights for their team. However, they can rarely do it alone. A good team also needs role players that are productive on both ends of the floor to alleviate the pressure. Portland’s role players came through on Sunday night.