The Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers both took the floor on Wednesday night without franchise-defining superstars. What proved the biggest difference in the Blazers' third straight loss? Los Angeles has another one.

Portland fell to the Lakers 99-94 at Crypto.com Arena, missing Damian Lillard more than ever with its starting backcourt struggling from the opening tip and Anthony Davis taking over as the outcome hung in the balance late. Davis had 30 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks on 10-of-18 shooting, willing the Lakers — missing LeBron James for a fourth straight game — to victory by scoring the game's next six points once the Blazers tied the score with 2:44 remaining.

“Obviously, AD. was tough to control,” Chauncey Billups said.

Norman Powell scored a team-high 30 points and hit five triples for Portland, saving his best outing since returning from injury last week for his Southern California homecoming.  The UCLA product drained back-to-back triples from the left side of the floor in crunch time, knotting the score at 89-89.

“Norman was really good,” Billups said. “Was able to get downhill, finish at the basket. Obviously, knocked down some really big threes for us. He was the one guy that really had it going, and we did a good job of finding him.”

Anfernee Simons and CJ McCollum combined for 34 points on 35 shots, though, inefficiency indicative of the Blazers' even more dire team-wide shooting struggles. Jusuf Nurkic needed 15 shots to score 16 points, and Robert Covington — who otherwise stuffed the stat sheet — went scoreless while missing all eight of his field goal attempts.

Portland's 35.7% shooting overall is its third-worst mark of 2021-22, per NBA.com/stats, and comes after making a season-low seven 3-pointers in Monday's loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Still, Billups remains pleased with his team's process offensively.

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“The one thing you can't control in this league is shotmaking. One thing that you can control is the quality of shots that you get, and I feel good about the quality of shots that we've gotten,” he said. “I'm encouraged, I really am. I'm encouraged that we're still playing the right basketball. You gotta make shots in this league to give yourself a chance to win.”

The Blazers' third loss in four days pushes them to 21-31, just one and a half games up on the New Orleans Pelicans for the final spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament. Powell's reaction to his team's recent performance isn't as glass-half-full as his coach's.

“Definitely not what we wanted, just to get one game,” he said of the Blazers' 1-3 road trip. “We were definitely looking at more. Gotta tighten up when we get home.”