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Trail Blazers-Thunder Preview

Mar 28, 2010 - 4:37 AM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

Portland (43-29) at Oklahoma City (44-27), 7:00 p.m. EDT

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers are in the mix for two of the final playoff spots in the West.

Both, however, are playing like they're atop the conference.

The Thunder look to build on one of their most impressive victories of the season Sunday night when they host a surging Trail Blazers team seeking its 13th win in 16 games.

With just over two weeks left in the regular season, Oklahoma City (44-27) is sixth in the conference, one game up on Portland (44-29) and San Antonio. All three likely will make the playoffs, as ninth-place Memphis trails by 5 1/2 games.

The Thunder and Trail Blazers also each have a slim chance of winning the Northwest Division with first-place Denver three games ahead of Oklahoma City and four in front of Portland.

"We're trying to move up," Portland's Brandon Roy said. "We've got a chance to control our own destiny (Sunday), so we've got to go in there and play good basketball. And that's been our goal, to try to not look behind us but look at those teams ahead of us."

While the Trail Blazers won the Northwest a year ago, the Thunder have been one of this season's biggest surprises after finishing 2008-09 with 59 losses, fourth-most in the league.

Oklahoma City is poised to make the playoffs for the first time since 2005 when the franchise was in Seattle, and the young team took arguably its biggest step forward Friday night against the West-leading Los Angeles Lakers.

The highly anticipated game against the defending champions was stunningly one-sided as the Thunder ran away with a 91-75 victory, their 12th in 14 games at the Ford Center.

"It feels good for us," said Kevin Durant, who finished with 26 points "It's another win for us and coming down the stretch, we need wins like this."

The Thunder snapped a 12-game losing streak against the Lakers, limiting Los Angeles to 47 points on 32.1 percent through three quarters en route to a 33-point lead.

"No matter who it was, it's a big victory for us," forward Jeff Green said. "We're trying to make a push, trying to get a good seed in the playoffs knowing teams are going to come in here and play us hard."

Portland arrives in Oklahoma City after Saturday's 112-101 win over New Orleans. The game wasn't as close as the final score indicated - Portland led by 26 in the fourth before coach Nate McMillan emptied his bench.

Roy led the Blazers with one of the best shooting performances of his career, hitting 12 of 14 from the floor to finish with 28 points in 32 minutes. LaMarcus Aldridge also had a hot hand, scoring 24 points on 11 of 16 shooting for Portland, which shot 57.3 percent.

Despite Saturday's win, the Blazers' defense has been instrumental to the team's success, holding 14 of its last 18 opponents to fewer than 100 points.

They will face an Oklahoma City team that has reached triple digits in 10 of 15 games, winning nine such contests.

The Blazers did an excellent job of shutting down Durant in the first meeting of the season, an 83-74 win at Oklahoma City on Nov. 1. However, they couldn't slow down the dynamic scorer in an 89-77 home loss on Feb. 9.

Durant, who narrowly trails Cleveland's LeBron James in the scoring race, had 33 points and 11 rebounds in the victory, but had one of his worst offensive performances in the loss, finishing with 16 points on 3 of 20 shooting.