PORTLAND — The Portland Trail Blazers players and staff wore T-shirts on Sunday honoring fan Sandra “Sandy” Zickefoose who died at 67 after collapsing in the stands during the fourth quarter of Thursday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks.
The Zickefoose family was also in attendance on Sunday and the Blazers had a moment of silence as well as a rose placed in the seat in which she sat at Blazer games to honor her.
“It means a lot. It was tough for everybody. I can’t even imagine what the family is going through right now and to be wearing this and to be representing this it gives us an added edge going into tonight,” Wesley Matthews said.
No Blazer would say whose idea it was but all were excited when they found about the gesture.
Missed opportunities in Los Angeles
The Portland Trail Blazers had their best offensive quarter of the season in the first quarter of their 106-102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday afternoon.
Their 38 points in the quarter were the most they’d had all season but they only led by five and they didn’t have enough cushion to withstand the second half run from the Clippers.
A couple of badly timed Blazers fouls and an over-the-back call that wasn’t called against the Clippers were the focus but Blazers coach Terry Stotts saw more things he wasn’t pleased with other than the final two minutes.
“I thought the way we played in the first quarter I thought we should have had a bigger lead,” he said. “At the end of the first quarter we should have had a better lead at halftime.
“You know they are going to make a run and they did. And, to our credit they were able to come back and make it a two points game with a chance to pull it out.”
The Clippers also shot 41 midrange jumpers, a number Stotts likes, but they hit 20 of them and that’s something the Blazers will live with.
“That’s the goal is contested midrange jump shots and on the whole for our season we’re doing a good job of that part of it,” Stotts said. “We’ve done a better job of minimizing shots at the rim and the most important thing defensively is that we stick to our principals and I think we’ve done that.”
