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Trail Blazers get past Hornets

Mar 30, 2012 - 6:52 AM Portland, OR (Sports Network) - LaMarcus Aldridge finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds as the Trail Blazers used a late run to down the Hornets, 99-93, on Thursday.

Luke Babbitt hit four three-pointers en route to a career-high 16 points, Wesley Matthews scored 18 and Nicolas Batum netted 14 for Portland, which has won two of three.

Portland also completed a 4-0 season sweep of the Hornets.

"In terms of what we want to accomplish as a team going forward, I thought the third and fourth quarter defensively -- that's where the game was won tonight," said Blazers interim head coach Kaleb Canales.

Marco Belinelli tied his career-best with a 27-point performance and Carl Landry poured in 24 but it was not enough for New Orleans, which has dropped three of four.

The Blazers opened their largest lead of the game at 11 early in the fourth but the visitors came racing back, rolling off a 15-4 rally capped off by back-to-back treys from Belinelli to tie the game at 87 with 4:51 to play.

At 91-90 a bit later, Raymond Felton began Portland's spurt with a three. Batum followed with his own triple before J.J. Hickson got a steal that led to an Aldridge jumper.

Belinelli answered with yet another trey, his seventh of the night, but there was just 19.9 seconds on the clock, and those turned out to be the game's final points.

The Hornets were outshot in the first half 48.6 percent to 47.5 percent, but they made all 12 of their free-throw attempts and took a 54-41 edge into intermission.

"You look at the guys' effort, the way we fought, the way we hung in there all night. We had a bad stretch in the third -- gave up some layups and costly threes -- but our guys just fought the whole night," said Hornets coach Monty Williams.

Game Notes

Portland guard Nolan Smith did not play with an ear infection. He will not travel with the team to Los Angeles for Friday's game against the Clippers...New Orleans center Chris Kaman missed his fourth straight game with an illness...Felton recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 assists...The Hornets committed 15 turnovers to the Blazers' 10.