Blazers venture into their house of horrors against Warriors (Dec 17, 2016)
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Damian Lillard makes the first of his two annual trips to his hometown on Saturday night when the Portland Trail Blazers visit the Golden State Warriors.
The goal: Set the stage for closing down Oracle Arena for the summer with a return visit in the playoffs.
The Trail Blazers had a chance to do just that last May but lost three straight in Oakland in a 4-1 defeat in the Western Conference semifinals.
Those were three of seven straight losses that Portland has endured in Oakland since Nov. 23, 2013.
And those games -- especially the four in the regular season -- haven't been close.
The Warriors put a 128-112 and 136-111 thumping on the Trail Blazers in their two regular-season visits last season. Overall, Golden State has averaged a 16.8-point margin of victory in its four-game regular-season home run over Portland.
If any player is capable of turning that around, it's Lillard. After all, he had 20 points and nine assists as a rookie in the 2013 win, and he crushed the Warriors with 51 points in a 137-105 home win over Golden State last January.
Unfortunately for the Trail Blazers, it seems recent wins over the two-time Western Conference champs have only inspired them to greater things. The Warriors responded to the 32-point shellacking last season with the subsequent 16- and 25-point home wins, followed by the 4-1 playoff triumph.
Lillard often hasn't been at his best in front of family and old friends in Oakland. He did have a 38-point outing in his most recent regular-season visit last April, but that followed a 5-of-19, 17-point dud a month earlier when he missed nine of his 10 3-point attempts.
The point guard enters Saturday's visit on a bit of a roll. He'd already had three 30-point games this month before exploding for 40, two off his season high, in Thursday's loss at Denver.
Portland was coming off a 114-95 thrashing of the Oklahoma Thunder two nights earlier.
"We weren't the same team that we have been the last few games," Lillard told reporters after the Denver loss.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr, meanwhile, wasn't happy with his team's play Thursday night, either. But his team was good enough to win anyway, 103-90 at home over the New York Knicks.
The game featured 36 consecutive Warriors baskets on which they were credited with assists. They finished with 41 assists on 45 hoops, the first team this season with an assist on more than 90 percent of its shots.
"That was the lone bright spot of the game," Kerr said to reporters afterward. "They really look for each other. That's a theme almost every night. That's such a great quality to have as a team."
The Warriors had 45 assists on 50 baskets in their 127-104 win at Portland last month.
Lillard was the game's top scorer with 31 points but missed 11 of his 19 shots from the field and registered a minus-29 plus/minus in his 32 minutes.
