Portland Trail Blazers: Why Loss to Oklahoma City Represents Bigger Problems

It was the day after the Super Bowl, and most people probably weren't paying too much attention to the NBA world. But for Portland Trail Blazers fans, the Oklahoma City Thunder were in town, and it was a chance to take a 2-0 season advantage over their biggest division rivals.

Instead, it became just another reason to doubt the Blazers' ability to be a legitimate contender this season.

Sure, there were some bad calls. The Thunder were essentially given a free ticket to overtime when LaMarcus Aldridge was called for defensive goaltending on a block of Kevin Durant's layup.

Replay later showed that the block was good, which would have meant a Blazer win, but for some reason, the officials could not look at replay of that particular play in order to get the correct call.

However, calls like this didn't decide the outcome; they simply did just enough to ensure all the Blazers' shortcomings really did factor into the final score.

The Blazers had a six-point lead, at home with just over two minutes remaining, but somehow they only managed to score one more bucket the rest of the fourth quarter. What is it about this team that causes them to fumble away games that are more than winnable?

Part of it seems to be a lack of consistency from anyone not named LaMarcus Aldridge. He scored 39 points in this one on 50 percent shooting, but was clearly out of gas by the end of the game. He missed several shots down the stretch that he was making earlier on, but he can't really be blamed after carrying the team for most of the game.

Wesley Matthews played as well as he has all season, but most of the rest of the team struggled. Nicolas Batum had 13 points and Jamal Crawford 17, but they shot a combined 11-of-33. 

Even with the poor shooting, the game would have easily been Portland's if it hadn't been inexplicably killed on the glass. The Thunder wound up out-rebounding the Blazers by 20 tonight, including Russell Westbrook getting 11 all by himself. 

The Blazers had a chance to gain a game on all three of their main divisional rivals tonight. Instead, they wound up dropping to 1-7 in games decided by five points or less. 

Something clearly needs to change in order to make this team more competitive in close games, or the Blazers will be a first-round one-and-done once again. Maybe it's fewer minutes for Aldridge. Maybe it's starting Batum over Gerald Wallace. Maybe the Blazers need to acquire another veteran to add depth at the point so we can stop pretending that Crawford is a backup point guard.

Whatever that is, they better figure it out soon, or else we already know how this story's going to end.