{"id":327535,"date":"2025-12-03T07:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/327535\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T07:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:07:10","slug":"trail-blazers-comeback-falls-short-in-loss-to-toronto-we-need-48-minutes-of-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/327535\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers comeback falls short in loss to Toronto: \u2018We need 48 minutes of fight\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> crossed the Canadian border Monday looking to put a disappointing November in the rearview mirror.<\/p>\n

Instead, they were dealt another painful defeat.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Raptors beat the Blazers 121-118 Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena, surviving a fourth-quarter rally to end a four-game losing streak in the series. <\/p>\n

Deni Avdija<\/a> finished with 25 points, 14 assists and seven rebounds, Toumani Camara<\/a> scored 21 points and made six three-pointers and Shaedon Sharpe<\/a> added 23 points in a visit to his home country. <\/p>\n

But in the end, the Blazers (8-13) were undone by their carelessness with the ball, their spotty defense and their inability to produce in the clutch.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the game, we lose by three points,\u201d Portland interim coach Tiago Splitter<\/a> told reporters after the game. \u201cThat\u2019s one or two possessions. One or two stops. So everything matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it mattered most in the closing minutes, when the Blazers fell just short of completing a furious comeback. Toronto opened the final period sporting a 15-point lead and when Gradey Dick swished an 18-footer and a fast-break three-pointer on back-to-back possessions to give the Raptors a 104-90 lead with 9:10 left, they looked well on their way to a convincing victory. <\/p>\n

But the Blazers refused to go quietly. Camara and Avdija swished three-pointers to cut the lead to eight \u2014 and give the Blazers a little momentum \u2014 and Portland continued to fight until the final horn. With Jerami Grant<\/a> completing driving layups on offense and blocking shots on defense, Camara swishing threes and defending the perimeter and Avdija doing a little bit of everything, the Blazers stunningly whittled the double-digit deficit down to two points in the closing minute. <\/p>\n

When Splitter earned a successful challenge on a no-call on Sharpe, the Blazers\u2019 shooting guard nailed a pair of free throws with 1:18 left and they were within 117-115. Then, after the defense forced Jamal Shead into a missed floater on the other end, the Blazers were in position to tie or take the lead with less than a minute remaining.<\/p>\n

But they couldn\u2019t deliver. <\/p>\n

Avdija initiated a set at the top of the perimeter and, with Shead defending him, the Blazers\u2019 point-forward wiggled his way to the free throw line. As he did so, Avdija had Jakob Poeltl in front of him and Shead to the left of him. Avdija tangled with Shead and shoved him with his left arm, knocking the Raptors\u2019 guard to the ground and drawing a critical offensive foul with 38.8 seconds left. <\/p>\n

Splitter challenged the call, but this time it didn\u2019t go the Blazers\u2019 way.<\/p>\n

On the ensuing possession, Shead tossed a bullet pass through traffic to Scottie Barnes on the baseline and he finished the play with a dunk, giving Toronto a 119-115 lead with 17.2 seconds left and effectively ending the Blazers\u2019 comeback bid. <\/p>\n

It was another tough, down-to-the-wire loss for the Blazers, who fell to 5-8 in \u201cclutch-time\u201d games, when the score is within five points in the final five minutes.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that the Blazers coughed up 14 turnovers that led to 24 Toronto points or that they let the push-the-pace Raptors run at will \u2014 the NBA\u2019s most prodigious fast-break team finished with 25 fast break points. It also didn\u2019t help that Portland shot 21-of-32 from the free throw line.<\/p>\n

But after the game, Splitter seemed most displeased with his team\u2019s inconsistent effort, wondering what might have happened if it had played the second and third quarters like the fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need 48 minutes of fight,\u201d Splitter told reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to get them ready and I\u2019ve got to do that. I\u2019ve got to find a way to get those guys to play 48 minutes and compete the whole game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes finished with 28 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, Immanuel Quickley had 23 points and eight assists and Brandon Ingram added 21 points and six rebounds for the Raptors (15-7), who handed the shorthanded Blazers their third consecutive loss and eighth in the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this is a young group, but there\u2019s a lot of things to get better,\u2019 Splitter told reporters. \u201dAnd the commitment of playing 48 minutes we have to have. The game has 200-whatever possessions \u2026 so we\u2019ve got to treat every possession as gold. And we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up<\/p>\n

The Blazers visit the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the second game of an East Coast back-to-back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers crossed the Canadian border Monday looking to put a disappointing November in the rearview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[21393,27410,166576,402,10105,32031,257,2971,355,18431,166577,166578,36315,99],"class_list":["post-327535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-athlete","tag-athletic","tag-b-ball","tag-basketball","tag-competition","tag-competitive","tag-general","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-raptors","tag-raptors-2025","tag-raptors2025","tag-regular-season","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}