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Portland's been in a bit of a rut lately losing games in which they held leads in the 4th quarter. I get the frustration and have felt it myself with those two recent OKC losses and last night's loss to Golden State. It's natural! It's easy to become convinced of a narrative that Portland has unique problems with closing games out.

With this in mind, I went through ESPN's game logs of all of the Portland games this season and recorded the highest win probability for the team that ended up losing to look at a big-picture perspective. With 18 wins and 17 losses, the counts of blown leads either way should be pretty comparable if there is no overall pattern.

Here's what I've found. I'll classify games into 5 categories:

Runaway wins (the losing team never had a win probability higher than 50%):

Wins (3):

@ San Antonio on December 14 (34.5%)
vs Houston on October 28 (36.0%)
vs Minnesota on December 12 (40.7%)

Losses (3):

@ Phoenix on November 5 (19.4%)
@ Cleveland on November 23 (31.6%)
@ Brooklyn on November 27 (49.0%)

Slightly blown leads (the losing team had between a 50% and 70% probability of winning):

Wins (2):

@ Houston on December 17 (HOU had a 53.4% chance of winning up 2 with 11:30 left in the 1st)
vs Indiana on December 4 (IND had a 68.9% chance of winning up 8 with 6:40 left in the 1st)

Losses (5):

@ Milwaukee on November 21 (POR had a 52.3% chance of winning up 4 with 5:18 left in the 2nd)
@ Dallas on December 16 (POR had a 53.6% chance of winning up 8 with 7:27 left in the 1st)
vs Memphis on November 2 (POR had a 57.2% chance of winning when tied with 2:27 left in the 4th)
@ Denver on December 23 (POR had a 63.4% chance of winning up 6 with 9:26 left in the 3rd)
@ L.A. Lakers on November 30 (POR had a 67.9% chance of winning up 11 with 5:00 left in the 1st)

Moderately blown leads (the losing team had between a 70% and 80% chance of winning):

Wins (1):

@ Utah on December 3 (UTA had a 75.3% chance of winning up 4 with 4:42 left in the 3rd)

Losses (2):

vs Miami on October 26 (POR had a 73.0% chance of winning up 8 with 5:19 left in the 2nd)
@ Oklahoma City on December 19 (POR had a 79.4% chance of winning up 10 with 2:41 left in the 1st, but also at 78.9% up 1 with 1:03 left in the 4th)

Badly blown leads (the losing team had between an 80% and 90% chance of winning):

Wins (7):

vs Minnesota on December 10 (MIN had an 83.0% chance of winning up 9 with 3:35 left in the 3rd)
vs Charlotte on December 26 (CHA had an 85.1% chance of winning up 14 with 2:16 left in the 2nd)
@ New Orleans on November 10 (NO had an 87.1% chance of winning up 10 with 7:22 left in the 2nd)
vs San Antonio on November 15 (SAS had an 87.3% chance of winning up 6 with 5:11 left in the 4th)
@ Sacramento on October 19 (SAC had an 88.2% chance of winning up 10 with 5:19 left in the 3rd)
vs Phoenix on October 21 (PHO had an 89.3% chance of winning up 12 with 1:52 left in the 2nd)
@ Charlotte on November 9 (CHA had an 89.6% chance of winning up 12 with 7:09 left in the 3rd)

Losses (3):

vs Utah on November 19 (POR had an 81.8% chance of winning up 12 with 4:18 left in the 1st)
@ Dallas on November 12 (POR had an 82.1% chance of winning up 6 with 6:45 left in the 4th)
@ Oklahoma City on December 21 (POR had an 84.9% chance of winning up 14 with 9:49 left in the 2nd, but also at 83.5% up 5 with 2:56 left in the 4th)

Collapses (the losing team had more than a 90% chance of winning):

Wins (5):

vs Denver on October 24 (DEN had a 90.8% chance of winning up 13 with 4:03 left in the 2nd)
@ New York on November 25 (NYK had a 91.2% chance of winning up 14 with 4:49 left in the 2nd)
@ Phoenix on November 4 (PHO had a 94.2% chance of winning up 8 with 6:33 left in the 1st)
@ L.A. Lakers on October 23 (LAL had a 95.3% chance of winning up 8 with 4:26 left in the 4th)
@ Miami on November 7 (MIA had a 96.2% chance of winning up 15 with 6:30 left in the 3rd, but also at 95.3% up 10 with 5:50 left in the 4th)

Losses (4):

vs Brooklyn on November 17 (POR had a 90.3% chance of winning up 11 with 3:22 left in the 3rd)
vs Denver on December 8 (POR had a 93.1% chance of winning up 10 with 9:26 left in the 4th)
@ Golden State on December 30 (POR had a 94.5% chance of winning up 8 with 4:35 left in the 4th)
vs L.A. Clippers on November 29 (POR had a 98.6% chance of winning up 18 with 3:13 left in the 3rd, but also at 80.7% up 5 with 4:43 left in the 4th)

Of course, these are just estimates and I've chosen somewhat arbitrary categories, but on the whole, Portland doesn't seem to have a pattern of collapses or badly blown leads and actually have come back more often in these last two categories than they've had painful losses in these categories.

I know it's hard to see the Blazers lose tough games which seem like they should have won, such as last night, but these things happen. It seems a bit tough because all of Blazer collapses have come after the opponent collapses in this list, but I doubt this is more than just statistical noise.

Here is a spreadsheet in case you are interested in looking at the data.

When you have one of the most clutch players in the league statistically we shouldn't really blow leads. The team is going through some growing pains though losing CJ, though at this point CJ might have regressed a bit. I think Simons has the potential to be a better player but as of today CJ is likely the better player in a vacuum.

Lillard is still very good, but other teams know what he can do so they are more likely to force him to pass it or have to work through 2-3 defenders to score.

For as long as I can remember the Blazers definitely seem cursed in the 4th, it is our fate.

Lillard is a 4th quarter magician and has almost single handedly held the tide against that fate for his career here, but even he cant do it every game and each game without "Dame magic" we revert to the same cursed team that we were for long years before he joined the Blazers.

One could potentially argue that Dame's individual brilliance has covered up coaching flaws and allowed us to be lazy in developing a more well rounded clutch game, but that is honestly a problem any coach should wish to have.

DeBlazerRiddem wrote:For as long as I can remember the Blazers definitely seem cursed in the 4th, it is our fate.

Lillard is a 4th quarter magician and has almost single handedly held the tide against that fate for his career here, but even he cant do it every game and each game without "Dame magic" we revert to the same cursed team that we were for long years before he joined the Blazers.

One could potentially argue that Dame's individual brilliance has covered up coaching flaws and allowed us to be lazy in developing a more well rounded clutch game, but that is honestly a problem any coach should wish to have.

I remember quite a few years where Dame was #1 or #2 in 4th quarter points so Dame Time was a huge aspect of why this team was respectable in close games. I'm sure it does make the coaching staff a bit lazier in that regard since you can rely on Dame in his prime to just light it up typically.

Any team can fall into that thought process if you have say KD or Harden it's very easy to rely on them in those late game situations.

For quite a number of years it felt like:
1) The Blazers would lose leads at the beginning of the 3rd quarter.

2) The Blazers would dig themselves into a hole in the 1st, and have to expend a ton of energy to try and win.

For probably 30 years I’ve thought of them as better at playing from behind than with a lead.

DeBlazerRiddem wrote:For as long as I can remember the Blazers definitely seem cursed in the 4th, it is our fate.

Lillard is a 4th quarter magician and has almost single handedly held the tide against that fate for his career here, but even he cant do it every game and each game without "Dame magic" we revert to the same cursed team that we were for long years before he joined the Blazers.

One could potentially argue that Dame's individual brilliance has covered up coaching flaws and allowed us to be lazy in developing a more well rounded clutch game, but that is honestly a problem any coach should wish to have.

I know that it can feel like that. For many years as a fan, it felt like Portland would be fated to lose games in which they held a lead in the 4th. Once Roy came on board, that changed a bit for me, and I felt Portland was more likely to win, or even come from behind. Lillard has similarly turned things around in a huge way with how I feel about Portland's prospects of winning close games.

Except for early in the season, I've become doubtful that Portland will win close games, so I dug into the data to see whether my feelings were backed up with evidence. As is often the case, my feelings were wrong.