Lakers rally, but Damian Lillard sinks dagger in final second

Damian Lillard stepped back and released the ball over Brandon Ingram in a motion that’s broken so many hearts.

Only 0.7 seconds remained in the game, but the self-assured young Lakers didn’t feel defeated. Instead two rookies, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma, teamed up one more time, improvising in the face of a Portland defense designed to keep them from the one thing that could have extended the game.

Kuzma managed to get open and released a perfect arching three-pointer at the buzzer.

“I thought it was going in,” Kuzma said.

Instead it hit the front of the rim and sent the Moda Center into a frenzy. The Lakers fell 113-110, losing their 13th consecutive game against the Trail Blazers. They have not won in Portland since 2014.

“It’s hard to play in here,” Ball said. “They came out and jumped on us. We fought our way back and at the end they took it from us.”

Lillard scored 32 points and Jusuf Nurkic added 28 for Portland. The Lakers were led by Brook Lopez, who scored 27 points, and Kuzma, who scored a career-high 22 points. Ball did not score, missing his only two shots. He had two blocked shots, one turnover, one steal, four assists and three rebounds.

The Lakers also lost starting power forward Larry Nance Jr. to a broken hand. Nance suffered the injury in the third quarter and had X-rays during the game. He will be evaluated by Lakers doctors on Friday when the team is back in Los Angeles.

As they tend to do, the Lakers fell behind big in the first quarter — by as many as 18 points. Portland made 15 of 21 shots and six of seven three-pointers. They weren’t all uncontested looks, but cut into what had been a strong Lakers defense. The Lakers, meanwhile, attempted five three-pointers and missed all of them.

After one quarter, Portland led 41-25.

But the Lakers trusted their defense. They swarmed the Trail Blazers, especially in the paint, frustrating Portland in ways that didn’t always show up on the stat sheet. Their statistics, though, showed a positive trend. The Lakers cut Portland’s lead to four at halftime, outscoring them 37-25 in the second quarter.

By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers trailed 87-85 and had seven steals, six blocked shots and only five turnovers.

“We just tried to play with a lot of energy,” Kuzma said. “Tried to make their role players beat us.”

Neither team gave in easily in the fourth quarter and neither team gave anything up easily, either.

Kuzma tied the score to start the fourth quarter, then after a back-and-forth tug of war, he gave the Lakers the lead with a three-pointer with 10:13 left in the game. It was only the Lakers’ second three-pointer of the game. At that point they had made two of 12 from deep.

Kuzma’s last bucket came with 1:08 left in the game, when he gave the Lakers a 107-106 lead. Two possessions later, the Lakers trailed by three and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope came off a screen to sink a game-tying shot.

“KCP being one of our better shooters, if he gets a clean look at a three we want him taking it,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said.

Portland took the lead back with Lillard’s heroics and then it was Kuzma’s turn again. Walton had left him in the game, and Ball too, hoping to teach the young players through that experience.

“Portland went to some junk defense, which you should,” Walton said. “There’s point seven, only threes, they were all around the three-point line so it took us out of the play we were actually running. But I’m glad that they figured out a way to manipulate what was going on to get someone a good look. It was Lonzo taking it out and Kuzma, two rookies, they had the confidence and, again, I’ll take Kuz taking that shot at the end of the game, too.”

Kuzma released the shot from the top of the arc. “Good experience,” Kuzma said, still smarting from the loss. “Sure I’ll have a lot of those in my future.”

tania.ganguli@latimes.com

Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli