Devin Booker and Jalen Green went 21-for-21 at the free-throw line Wednesday, a neat correction to Phoenix’s Monday problem. It still could not rescue the Suns from a 132-119 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers at Mortgage Matchup Center. The foul shots were flawless. The defensive response was anything but.
Phoenix led 34-29 after the first quarter, then allowed Portland to score 43 in the second. The Trail Blazers took a 72-59 halftime lead, added 32 points in the third and entered the fourth ahead 104-85. By then, Booker and Green could make every trip to the stripe and still be asked to solve a deficit that had become far too large.
Portland did not need one scorer to carry the evening. It shot 51 percent from the field, scored 56 points in the paint and finished with 47 rebounds, including 16 on the offensive glass. Phoenix shot 45 percent, made 10 of 36 three-pointers and finished eight rebounds behind.
Portland committed 18 turnovers, but those changes of possession did not make up for the possessions in which the Blazers simply got a shot, a rebound or another clean chance.
That variety made the second quarter especially damaging. Damian Lillard scored 25 points, Jrue Holiday added 15 on five made three-pointers and Portland received 21 points and 12 assists from Deni Avdija. The Blazers did not have to keep returning to the same action or the same player.
When one source of offense cooled, another remained available. Phoenix allowed the game to become a procession of different questions.
Donovan Clingan was the largest one. The Portland center scored 24 points on 9-for-12 shooting, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked three shots. Four of those rebounds came on offense. His presence was not confined to a few highlight finishes; it kept affecting possessions after the first shot had already failed.
The fourth quarter offered two clear examples. At 10:22, Clingan collected an offensive rebound after Sidy Cissoko’s miss, but Ryan Dunn blocked Clingan’s two-foot layup at 10:16 and Phoenix secured the defensive rebound. That was a genuine stop.
Later, Portland showed how much more difficult the same job could become. After a Lillard miss, Robert Williams III rebounded at 8:16, missed a tip, rebounded again at 8:14 and scored. He also converted the ensuing free throw.
Clingan later secured a defensive rebound after a Phoenix miss and, at 3:17, finished a two-foot alley-oop dunk from Lillard.
The sequence involving Williams is not a footnote. Phoenix made Portland miss, then allowed the possession to continue until the miss no longer mattered. The Suns finished with 14 offensive rebounds themselves, so this was not a night without activity around the basket.
