Blazers History: Portland Wins Bubble Opener

In some ways, the height of the COVID pandemic feels like forever ago and in other ways it feels like yesterday.

But on this day three years ago, some normalcy re-entered our lives when thePortland Trail Blazersresumed their season.

In their first game against the Memphis Grizzlies, who they were catching in the Western Conference standings, the Blazers pulled out a much-needed 140-135 overtime win.

Portland trailed by nine points with just under five minutes to go, but the team outscored Memphis 21-12 in the last part of the game to go into overtime. From there, the Blazers went on an 11-0 run to start overtime and coasted to victory.

CJ McCollum led all scorers with 33 points, while Damian Lillard added 29. Carmelo Anthony also got in on the fun, scoring 21 points on 7 of 10 shooting.

The win was big for the Blazers, who went on to win six of eight games before beating the Grizzlies again in the play-in tournament.