The Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers showed that you don’t need a 127-125 score to highlight a fantastic NBA matchup in the Year of Our Lord, 2026. These Western Conference foes put up a tough battle, particularly on the defensive end. Active ball-hawking was punctuated by dazzling scoring displays by a couple of big stars. All of that got topped off by a neck-and-neck finish that left the outcome in doubt into the final minutes.
When the smoke cleared on this excellent contest the Blazers won by a hair’s breadth, 103-102. Trailing by one after a Portland inbounds turnover, Durant missed a shot. The Rockets got the offensive putback for the apparent victory, but it was 1/100th of a second too late. It ranked up there with Oklahoma City and the Denver Nuggets as Portland’s best home wins of the season.
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We’re going to give a dual award tonight. Deni Avdija was his usual magnificent self. He was quick to the hoop against the slightly-slower (on average) Rockets. Houston couldn’t deal with him without fouling. Deni finished with 41 points on 13-24 shooting, 13-15 from the foul line.
But dang, you cannot ignore Kevin Durant. He was big, smooth, and tasty as heck. There’s just something different about a star who’s not just dominant, but a professional. Every move, every pass, and most of all every shot looked right and tight out there. You can only look at him and marvel, especially when he’s under pressure and pulls off a shot that other players wouldn’t even think of. Durant had 37 points on 14-26 shooting.
As has been typical of the Blazers lately, three-point shooting shone a light on this game. The Blazers shot a semi-shoddy 12-40, 30%. The Rockets were awful, shooting 8-36, 22%. Once again Portland earned the edge, a huge key during their recent run.
This was a clash of old-school versus new NBA. The distinction wasn’t pure: Houston does plenty of speed stuff and Portland runs a classic drive-and-dish with aplomb. But basically the Rockets wanted to play pick-and-roll, matchup-based, smart-midrange-shot basketball while the Blazers wanted to smash and blitz their way past their more talented opponents. It was kind of like watching Chess versus Ultimate Frisbee. I, for one, am here for it. It was cool to see two teams that are pretty good at what they do try to control the game in their own ways. The NBA needs more style clashes like this.
The Blazers face these same Houston Rockets on Friday night at 7:00 PM, Pacific.
