By Aaron Fentress/ The Oregonian/ Joel Odom
The Portland Trail Blazers used hot shooting to jump to a 20-point lead in the second quarter, but then watched the lead evaporate in the second half before falling 111-108 to the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night at the Moda Center.
Chicago trailed all game but cut the Blazers’ lead to 85-81 heading to the fourth quarter. Coby White’s layup put the Bulls up 98-97 midway through the fourth, and the game was tight from there to the end.
Damian Lillard hit a three with 5.7 seconds left that cut Chicago’s lead to 109-108, but White hit two free throws to extend the lead to three, and then Carmelo Anthony’s turnaround three-pointer was no good with 1 second left.
“We lost this in the second half,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts told reporters. “Chicago outplayed us.”
CJ McCollum led the Blazers (3-4) with 26 points, while adding five rebounds and four assists. Lillard finished with 24 points, nine assists and five rebounds. Jusuf Nurkic put up 12 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
But the Bulls (4-4) outshot the Blazers 44% to 41.5%, and stormed back behind a balanced scoring effort. White finished with 21 points, while Otto Porter Jr. had 19 and Zach LaVine added 18.
The Blazers made 8 of 15 three-pointers in the first quarter (53.3%), but then made 11 of 36 for the rest of the game (30.6%), including 3 of 16 in the fourth quarter (18.8%).
