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

2. Persistent in the paint

Oklahoma City is a team that operates offensively from the inside-out. They finished the year sixth in paint points per game and led 142-132 in that cagegory through the first three games of this series. However, Portland was the team that owned the paint in Game 4, coming away with the 36-22 advantage.

Rip City also managed to win the battle in the trenches in Game 3, 46-36. However, that came in a loss. Sunday’s battle ended with a more pronounced margin, and the Blazers pulled this off despite shooting just 35.5 percent inside the restricted area.

Part of the reason is because Portland also went 7-of-13 in the key beyond the charge circle. Those timely floaters kept OKC defenders on their toes. The Blazers also did a great job of keeping the normally-aggressive Thunder out of the paint. Portland took 44 shots in the key while holding OKC to just 30 attempts. When they did manage to slip by, they shot just 36.7 percent.

Packing the paint proved to be demoralizing to the Thunder offense. They uncharacteristically took 65.9 percent of their shots from outside of the paint, converting on just 37.9 percent of them. We’ll see if the Blazers are able to do it again in Game 5.