Nuggets 96 - 102 Trail Blazers
Final
  for this game

Blazers beat Nuggets for fifth straight win

Mar 2, 2014 - 7:17 AM Portland, OR (SportsNetwork.com) - Robin Lopez had 18 points and nine rebounds, and the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Denver Nuggets 102-96 on Saturday night.

Damian Lillard netted 17 points, LaMarcus Aldridge supplied 16 points and seven boards and Nicolas Batum snatched 16 rebounds for Portland, which has won five in a row on the heels of a three-game losing streak.

Kenneth Faried tallied 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Nuggets, who have dropped five straight and 10 of their last 11.

"It's not going to be easy to get off of this hump," Denver's Randy Foye said of the team's recent slide. "You just have to believe and you just have to keep fighting and doing the little things."

The game was tied 10-10 right before the middle stages of the first before Portland went on a 12-2 run to seize control.

Lillard and Lopez netted four points apiece during the surge, which was capped on a Meyers Leonard dunk for a 22-12 Blazers advantage late in the stanza.

Portland led 32-24 after a quarter of play and headed into the break with a 56-48 cushion.

The Blazers' margin reached as high as 13 in the third before they settled for an 84-73 spread going into the fourth, where they were never seriously threatened.

Wilson Chandler split a pair of foul shots to bring Denver within 100-94 with under a minute to play, but Chandler and Evan Fournier missed 3-pointers on its next trip down the floor before Aldridge snatched the game-clinching rebound.

"They (the Nuggets) have a lot of guys that crash the boards so I thought down the stretch it was big to get rebounds," Aldridge said.

Game Notes

Portland shot 45.7 percent (37-of-81) from the floor and 18.5 percent (5- of-27) from beyond the arc ... The Blazers held a 54-38 points in the paint edge.






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