Holiday had a career playoff-high 33 points as the Pelicans took a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers with a 111-102 victory on Tuesday night. The series shifts to New Orleans on Thursday.
Holiday struggled at times with injuries after coming to the Pelicans in 2013. Then in early 2016 he took a leave of absence when doctors discovered that his wife, former U.S. national soccer team player Lauren Holiday, had a brain tumor while she was pregnant with the couple’s first child.
”He’s been through some tough times, the first year he’s injured, he’s on minute restrictions through the greater part of the season, and then everybody’s familiar with the situation with his wife and what they had to go through there,” coach Alvin Gentry said. ”Everybody’s healthy and in a good place now so I think mentally he’s in a good place.”
Holiday played Tuesday night with emotion he did not often show earlier in his career. He agreed that it felt a weight has been lifted.
”My family’s the most important thing to me, and with them being OK I can come back to the team freely and be able to help them out now,” Holiday said. ”It’s been fun. I feel like my teammates and the organization definitely helped me out coming back from things with my family, and even the injuries, with being able to play and being able to perform at the peak I’m performing.”
Holiday also had nine assists for the Pelicans, while Rajon Rondo came close to his 11th postseason triple-double with had 16 points Michael Gallup Youth Jersey , 10 rebounds and nine assists. Anthony Davis added 22 points and 13 rebounds.
CJ McCollum, who struggled with backcourt teammate Damian Lillard in the opener, rebounded with 22 points to lead the Blazers.
Portland trailed by as many as 11 points in the third quarter but Lillard hit a 3-pointer and added a free throw to tie the game at 93 with 7:31 left. Holiday’s pull-up jumper and Rondo’s driving layup kept the Blazers from pulling ahead.
Maurice Harkless dunked and Al-Farouq Aminu had a layup to re-tie the game at 97. After Holiday’s hook shot, Harkless made a 3-pointer to give Portland a 100-99 lead.
Nikola Mirotic and Holiday each hit 3-pointers to put the Pelicans back in front 105-100 with 1:35 remaining and Portland couldn’t catch up. Fans at the Moda Center booed at the final buzzer.
Lillard finished with 17 points for the Blazers, who were hurt in the third quarter when starters Jusuf Nurkic (left leg) and Evan Turner (right toe) left the game.
The third-seeded Blazers, in the playoffs for the fifth straight year, dropped the first game against the Pelicans 97-95, becoming the highest seed to lose at the start of the opening round.
Davis had 35 points and Rondo had 17 assists to tie the franchise record. Lillard and McCollum combined to shoot just 13 for 41 in the opener.
Lillard said he expected more out of himself.
”Coming into the playoffs, you know teams are going to lock in and they’re going to try to make the game hard for you,” he said.
Portland got a boost in Game 2 with the return of Harkless for first time since he had a minor procedure on his left knee in late March. He missed 11 games.
McCollum shook off the Game 1 struggles, hitting four of eight from the floor in the opening quarter. His layup tied the game at 21 and then he dished to Harkless for the dunk to put the Blazer in front.
Portland led 35-30 after rookie Zach Collin’s bank shot and the Blazers led by as many as nine points before taking a 59-54 lead into halftime.
Davis made a short jumper from out front to give the Pelicans a 65-64 lead. Portland was hurt a short time later when Nurkic limped off the court and into the locker room. When he returned to the bench, he was flexing his left leg. He iced his leg the rest of the game.
TIP INS:
Pelicans: Holiday had 12 points in the first quarter alone. … Davis had scored 25 or more in his first five post-season games. He came up a game shy tying LeBron James for the second-longest streak to begin a career Tremaine Edmunds Bills Jersey , behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 14 straight, according to Elias.
Trail Blazers: The third seed in the West has won its first-round series for the past four seasons. … Portland had home-court advantage in the playoffs for the first time since 2009. … Fans at the Moda Center were clearly upset with the officiating, taunting the refs with a chant in the final quarter.
QUOTABLE: ”We’ve still got two more games to win, so we’re not celebrating anything,” Gentry said.
The Chicago Bears made sweeping changes to lift a struggling franchise, and general manager Ryan Pace can’t wait to see how it all comes together.
The next big step is here.
The Bears reported to camp Thursday looking for bigger things after a busy offseason.
”I’d say it’s been aggressive,” Pace said. ”There’s been a lot of work that’s been done. It feels like it’s gone by fast because of that. But it’s very exciting and energizing. What’s neat about it is how quickly this continuity has come together.
”There are a lot of new pieces with our support staff, with our coaches, with our players, and it’s really neat to see how fast that’s come together, even before we started training camp.”
The team that takes the field Friday, when practices begin Cheap Shaquem Griffin Jersey , will have a decidedly different look than the one that finished with five wins last season. There were big changes on the sideline, with the Bears hiring Nagy off Andy Reid’s staff in Kansas City to replace the fired John Fox.
Besides bringing in an offensive-minded head coach, the Bears rebuilt a struggling receiving group to try to get the most out of prized quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. His development will obviously go a long way toward determining how soon Chicago ends a run of four straight last-place finishes in the NFC North and becomes a playoff contender. The Bears have made the postseason just one time since the 2006 team reached the Super Bowl.
It doesn’t hurt that they’re starting camp at just about full strength, though they might be without one notable player – rookie linebacker Roquan Smith. The No. 8 overall draft pick did not report Thursday and remained unsigned.
Pace seemed confident the impasse will end soon.
”This happens,” he said. ”This isn’t necessarily abnormal around the league. It’s happening. It is sometimes part of the process. We’re very optimistic that he’ll be here very soon.”
One positive for Chicago: Nagy was not expecting any players to start camp on the physically unable to perform list. He said receiver Allen Robinson and guard Kyle Long should be ”full speed ahead, good to go” after they were held back in offseason workouts because of injuries.
”The reason we did that was so they’d be ready to go now,” Nagy said. ”Now it’s go time.”
For them and the Bears. It’s time see how everything comes together.
Fox’s 14-34 record over three seasons gave him the second-worst winning percentage in franchise history. And the Bears are counting on a first-time head coach to help turn them around.
Nagy will be calling the plays, something he didn’t do until late last season. But he has earned high marks for his work with quarterbacks, particularly Alex Smith.
”He brings a lot to the table,” Trubisky said. ”It’s a group effort, everyone’s bringing ideas together, but at the end of the day Mitchell Trubisky Jersey Youth , it’s Coach Nagy’s offense and he’s just adding details, he’s a very detailed person. You can see his creativity every day, pretty much.”
Trubisky envisions a more potent and creative offense. The training wheels are essentially off. It’s a big change from where he was a year ago, when the Bears penciled him into a backup role, only to thrust him into the starting spot after Mike Glennon struggled through the first four games.
He also has some new playmaking targets, most notably Robinson. The Bears are banking on the talented receiver to regain the form that made him a Pro Bowl pick in 2015 and put aside the knee injury that sidelined him almost all of last season. Robinson tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee on Jacksonville’s third play of the season and had surgery the following week.
”I feel great. It’s been a process that we’ve taken a little bit slower, but I think that was for the best,” Robinson said. ”It just was all about getting me ready for this time right here, so I feel great. I feel 100 percent and I’m ready to go.”
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