New Orleans (8-10) at Portland (5-13) 10:00 pm EST
PORTLAND, Oregon (Ticker) - The Portland Trail Blazers try to
avoid a seventh straight defeat Friday when they meet the New
Orleans Hornets for the first time this season.
Off to the worst start of any Western Conference team, the Trail
Blazers are last in the league in scoring (85.2) and scoring
margin (minus-10.5). Only Toronto and Atlanta have fewer
victories than Portland.
In Wednesday's 84-74 defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Zach
Randolph scored 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and rookie
Martell Webster added 13 points for the Trail Blazers, who
scored their fewest points this season.
Despite spending the entire season away from New Orleans due to
Hurricane Katrina, the Hornets have made improvements from their
18-win 2004-05 campaign. The Hornets did not win their ninth
game last season until February 9 but could do so Friday.
David West scored 29 points and rookie Chris Paul added 16 with
10 rebounds as the Hornets dropped their third straight contest,
a 101-87 defeat to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday.
Portland lost two of the three encounters against the Hornets
last season but leads the all-time series, 24-12.
 |
Hornets hope to hand Trail Blazers their seventh straight loss
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
