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Cavaliers-Trail Blazers Preview

Jan 9, 2010 - 11:00 PM By BRETT HUSTON STATS Writer

Cleveland (28-10) at Portland (23-15), 9:00 p.m. EDT

The Portland Trail Blazers haven't been nearly as dominant at home this season as they were in 2008-09, but they did just win a visit from the team with the NBA's best record.

They haven't been able to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers anywhere over the past two years.

LeBron James has nearly averaged a triple-double in leading the Cavaliers to five consecutive victories over Portland, and they'll look to make it three straight at the Rose Garden on Sunday night.

The Trail Blazers (23-15) went 34-7 at home last season, but entered Friday night's visit from the Los Angeles Lakers with six losses in their first 19 games in the Pacific Northwest.

Portland hadn't had any problems with the Lakers at home over the past few years, and that held true again. Brandon Roy led the way with 32 points and Jerryd Bayless had 21 points in 21 minutes off the bench as the Blazers stretched their home winning streak over Los Angeles to nine straight with a 107-98 victory.

"We did a great job of playing a full 48-minute game," said Roy, who has 59 points in his last two games after having his 15-game streak of scoring at least 23 snapped. "It does give us confidence going into Cleveland, but again, we've got to start from square one and play the same type of basketball."

Portland might have a hard time recording consecutive home wins over two of the NBA's elite. The Cavaliers (28-10) have won five straight tight games over the Blazers since Jan. 30, 2008 - none by more than eight points - as James has averaged 30.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 9.2 assists.

With a victory Sunday, Cleveland would join Orlando as the only teams with active three-game winning streaks at the Rose Garden. The Magic visit Portland on Friday.

James had 35 points, seven assists and six boards Friday night at Denver, but perhaps his most significant statistic was a season-high eight turnovers. The Cavaliers gave the ball away 19 times overall in a 99-97 loss to a Nuggets team playing without Carmelo Anthony.

"We're playing too good of basketball to be frustrated with one game," said James, averaging a career-high 3.6 turnovers. "I feel like we played well enough to win, but we shot 60 percent from the free throw line, we turned the ball over 20 times. That can't help us."

James took 18 shots in the second half and 28 overall, and Cleveland is far better off when the reigning MVP is getting his teammates involved. The Cavaliers are 19-4 when he takes 20 or fewer shots and 12-2 when he has nine or more assists.

While James and Mo Williams do the bulk of Cleveland's crunch-time scoring, perhaps no player is as vital as reserve forward Anderson Varejao. The Cavaliers are 11-3 when their bench spark scores in double figures, and Varejao had a season-high 22 points and 10 rebounds in a 104-99 win over the Blazers at Quicken Loans Arena on Dec. 11.

Roy has averaged 23.3 points on 35.9 percent shooting in his last three games against Cleveland and LaMarcus Aldridge 22.7 points in his last three, but the Cavaliers also may want to keep their eyes on Martell Webster.

Webster, who had 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting in Cleveland last month, is averaging 19.2 points while hitting 40.5 percent of his 3-pointers over his past five games - the best extended stretch of his career.