Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from Game 4 loss vs. Warriors

3. Couldn’t clean the glass in the second half

The Blazers ended the 2018-19 season as the third-best rebounding team in the NBA, averaging 48.0 per game. However, with Jusuf Nurkic‘s (10.4 per game) absence due to injury and Enes Kanter (8.6 per game) and Al-Farouq Aminu (7.5 per game) seeing fewer minutes for schematic reasons, the Blazers lost a key part of their identity in this series. It showed, particularly in the second half of Game 4.

At halftime, the rebounding battle was even at 17 boards apiece. Through the first three quarters it was 28-26 in favor of Golden State. The boards were less of an issue at the time because the Blazers were out-shooting the Warriors to an insane degree. However, as the game wore on, the teams’ shooting percentages regressed to the mean. With more misses, the game suddenly came down to which team could control the glass.

The Warriors took advantage in a big way. They out-rebounded Portland 17-9 in the fourth quarter and 11-3 in OT. This includes eight offensive rebounds to the Blazers’ one in the game’s final 17 minutes, which led to a 9-0 advantage in second chance points.

Golden State’s greatness forced the Blazers to alter their rotation to be smaller, sacrificing one of the team’s key advantages. It ultimately played into the Warriors’ hands as they, in turn, used their size to win down low and close out the series.