The Portland Trail Blazers (2-3) needed a win to stay alive in the postseason, and they got one in gutsy fashion, beating the Houston Rockets (3-2) 88-77 in front of 20,462 Rose Garden fans on Tuesday night.
Portland’s final margin of victory was their largest against Houston since April 8th, 2003.
“I thought tonight our guys came out and played their hearts out,” head coach Nate McMillan said. “These guys wanted to go back (to Houston), they didn’t want their season to end.”
The Trail Blazers were faced with adversity even before the opening tip. Brandon Roy experienced flu like symptoms, and took an IV before the start of the game.
Portland got off to a hot start, taking a 23-13 lead on a LaMarcus Aldridge pull-up jumper with 3:53 remaining in the opening quarter. The Rockets battled back, getting eight points from Luis Scola in the final two minutes in the first quarter, closing the gap to 27-23 in the Trail Blazer’s favor with 58.9 seconds remaining the opening period. Scola converted a free throw with 29.8 seconds remaining in the first, and Portland held a slim advantage at 29-26 after 12 minutes.
“Early Scola was knocking down shots, and he was hot,” McMillan said. “We needed to get a little closer to him, our close outs were slow. This is a good team, if you’re collapsed on Yao then they move the ball.”
Scola finished the first period with 15 points, hitting 7-of-9 from the field. Rudy Fernandez was inserted into the rotation earlier than usual in the game, and finished the opening period with seven points to lead the Trail Blazers.
The home team continued to play strong offense in the second quarter, pushing their lead to 35-26 on a pull-up jumper from Travis Outlaw with 9:31 remaining in the opening half. Again Houston answered Portland’s run, cutting the gap to 35-32 on two made free throws from Carl Landry with seven minutes to go before halftime. The Trail Blazers battled back with an 11-4 run, going ahead 46-36 on two Outlaw free throws with 2:06 remaining in the second quarter. Portland closed the half on a driving lay-up from Roy, and carried a 50-43 advantage into halftime.
Against Houston this season, including the playoffs, the team leading at halftime has been the winner.
Aldridge led the Trail Blazers with 15 points in the first half, followed by Steve Blake with 10 points. Scola led all scorers with 17 points through one half.
Joel Przybilla put Portland up 56-45 on a dunk with 7:58 remaining in the third quarter, and the home team looked on the verge of turning the game into a blowout. Once again, though, Houston came up with big shots and defensive stops and got back in the game. Yao Ming hit an 18-footer with 3:14 remaining in the third period, cutting Portland’s lead to 58-57. Aaron Brooks tied the score at 62-62 on a lay-up with 1:42 remaining in the quarter. The Trail Blazers got the final basket before the fourth period on an 18-footer from Aldridge, and took a 64-62 lead into the final quarter of the evening.
Aldridge provided 10 of Portland’s 14 third quarter points, hitting 4-of-7 from the field. Roy struggled in the third period, making only 1-of-6 shot attempts.
Portland almost let the game, and the series, slip away in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. Von Wafer nailed a 20-foot jumper with 9:34 remaining in the game, giving the visiting team a 68-64 advantage. From that point the Trail Blazers took over offensively and shut the door on Houston. Portland went on a 15-0 run capped by a running jump shot from Roy making the score 79-68 Trail Blazers with 4:42 left on the game clock.
“Tonight guys played like this was a game we had to have,” Aldridge said. “Everybody came to play tonight.”
Ron Artest put Portland’s lead back to single digits with a three-pointer, and Brooks cut the edge to 80-75 on a nine-foot runner with 2:14 to go. Portland came up with a crucial bucket on a driving finger role from Blake with 1:15 remaining in the evening. Roy iced the game with a 16-foot step back with 18.4 seconds left on the clock, giving the Trail Blazer’s their biggest lead of the night at 88-75.
“I struggled throughout the game to get my second wind,” Roy said. “Late I finally felt good and had some bounce to my step, and was able to make some baskets.
Roy finished with 25 points, 14 coming in the final quarter of the night. Aldridge contributed 25 points and seven rebounds, five coming in the fourth quarter. Blake added 15 points, and Outlaw rounded out Portland’s top scorers with 10 points.
With the win the Trail Blazers earned at least one more game in the 2008-2009 season.
“We want to extend our season,” Roy said. “We want to play in the next round, and in order to do that we had to win this game first.”
Game six will be played in Houston on Thursday starting at 6:30 pm.
NATE MCMILLAN
“Our guys came out and played their hearts out. I’ve never doubted them. All season I’ve never doubted their resilience and the way they play when the game’s on the line.
“I brought Rudy in early in the first half then started him in the second half because I thought we needed to get some ball movement. I went with that rotation early because I thought our offense needed a lot of players who could score on the court. Rudy really helped but I think he wore himself out running and trying to defend bigger Houston players.
“They need just one more game. For us, its still a one-game season. They need only one and we need two. I know its different buildings and homecourt advantages and all that, but so far we haven’t won there and they’ve won here so the pressure is still on us.”
BRANDON ROY
“We had to be aggressive. Coach said everybody has to go out there and be aggressive. Last game I think I shot 13 out of 17 free throws and coach said we need more guys to attack (like that). LaMarcus did a good job of setting the pace for us. He was attacking all night. Rudy and Travis and Blake were getting to the paint so it opened up a lot of things that got us into the bonus. We were shooting free throws down the stretch and I think that’s what helped us keep the lead because they weren’t able to be aggressive defensively.
“We still haven’t won in their building. Hopefully we put the pressure back on them tonight. We’re just taking it one game at a time. That’s all we can do. We have another chance to play with our backs against the wall. We’re going to go out there and play loose and hopefully we can play like we did tonight. I felt I didn’t have the ball in my hands as much tonight and I felt like we had a better rhythm because of that.
LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE
“We can’t talk about it any more, we just got to go out and play and that was my whole mental state tonight, was to just to go out tonight and leave it all out on the line. Try and make all those plays, do those things I didn’t do last game, if I did those things then we should win…
STEVE BLAKE
We prepared for a close finish. We expected it to be close at the finish so we went over some game situations like this at the shoot around. We definitely were prepared for tonight.”
“Coach said we needed to follow through on plays on both ends of the floor and not turn it over. We wanted to hold them to one shot when they missed. All the little hustle plays, all that stuff was a factor.
• Portland’s 11-point win marks its largest in any game against the Rockets since April 8, 2003 (81-66 at Houston).
• The Trail Blazers’ 77 points allowed were Portland’s fewest in the postseason since Portland beat the L.A. Lakers, 106-77, May 22, 2000, in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals.
• The team that has won the first quarter has taken all eight games in the series, including the five games in the postseason ... All eight times, the winning team also led at halftime.
• Portland has now won 34 straight games when leading at halftime at the Rose, including both regular season and postseason games, dating back to the 2007-08 season.
• If the Trail Blazers were to win the series, Portland would be the ninth team in NBA history to win when trailing 3-1 in a seven-game playoff series (8-176, 4.3%).
• Brandon Roy has at least shared the team lead in scoring in all five games in the series.
• Houston’s three offensive rebounds mark an all-time Trail Blazers opponent low in the playoffs … Houston had 16 offensive boards in Game 4, including 10 in the fourth quarter.
• Portland’s 12 fouls marked a franchise playoff low and a low for the season.
• Portland’s 23-13 first-quarter lead marked its first double-digit advantage in the playoff series and matched its largest lead against the Rockets all season (Nov. 6) at the time ... The Trail Blazers used a 12-2 run to take the 23-13 advantage.
• Joel Przybilla matched a high for any game with four assists, a career high for a playoff game … He led Portland in assists for the first time this season … Przybilla had a team-high three assists in the first quarter alone.
• Steve Blake shared the team lead with seven rebounds, marking the first time he has been the high man in rebounding for Portland all year.
• Portland used a 15-0 run from the 9:34 mark of the fourth quarter to the 4:48 mark to take Houston’s biggest lead of the game, 68-64, to a 79-68 advantage and never trailed again … Before the run, Portland had just 14 points in the second half.
• The Trail Blazers have now blocked 36 shots in the series compared to 16 for the Rockets.
• Portland’s starters shot 27-for-50 (54.0%), while the Portland bench went 6-for-22 (27.3%).
• In all three games in the series at the Rose Garden, a Rocket has scored 15 or more points in the first quarter, just shy of Houston’s playoff record for any quarter of 18 (16, Yao Ming, first quarter, Game 1; 15, Ron Artest, first quarter, Game 2; 15, Luis Scola, first quarter, Game 5) … Scola’s 15 first-quarter points (7-9 FG) tonight were more than twice as many as any other player in the game.
• Aaron Brooks only missed seven three-pointers in the first four games of the series (10-17) before missing seven in tonight’s game alone (1-8).
