Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from Game 2 road win vs. Nuggets

3. Cleaning up the mistakes

Turnovers and free throw issues played a part in Portland’s Game 1 demise. The Blazers gave up 18 turnovers while only forcing 12. They also shot 74.1 percent from the line, which was uncharacteristic for the second-best free throw shooting team in the NBA.

Both of those flaws were fixed on Wednesday night. Portland committed just 10 turnovers in Game 2, though it only forced nine in return. The Blazers also went 16-for-20 from the line, which was more in line with their 81.4 percent season average.

It’s a good sign for a team to recognize its issues in one game and be able to turn around quickly and fix them for the next one. That’s incredibly important in the playoffs, as a failure to adjust game-to-game will ultimately lead to elimination.

For instance, In Game 2, the Blazers shot 42.4 percent from the field, gave up 23 offensive rebounds and only scored two points off of the turnovers they forced. We’ll see what adjustments they make for Game 3 to keep those issues from happening again.