Winners in seven of their past nine games, the Portland Trail Blazers look to continue their strong stretch run heading into the Western Conference play-in tournament when they host the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Portland (39-38) moved to the right side of .500 on Tuesday, when they led almost the entire way in a 114-104 road win over the Los Angeles Clippers.<\/p>\n
The Blazers trail the Clippers by a half-game for eighth place in the Western Conference. Portland is also 3 1\/2 games behind the Phoenix Suns for seventh place with five games remaining on the Blazers\u2019 schedule.<\/p>\n
The Tuesday win came on the heels of the NBA approving sale of the Trail Blazers to Tom Dundon, who is also owner of the NHL\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s intense, he wants to win,\u201d Blazers coach Tiago Splitter said of the organization\u2019s new owner. \u201cHe looks for perfection and that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do. It\u2019s not easy. We all know that we\u2019ve got a job to do. \u2026 But we\u2019re going to fight (in) these next games we\u2019ve got left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three of Portland\u2019s final five regular-season contests are against teams locked into either the playoffs or play-in round with San Antonio, Denver and a rematch vs. the Clippers all ahead.<\/p>\n
New Orleans (25-51) is eliminated from postseason contention and coming into Portland on a five-game losing streak. The Pelicans had been on a run, winning five of six and six of eight, but have since stumbled against a stretch of postseason-bound competition.<\/p>\n
Their most recent outing, a 134-102 defeat against the Houston Rockets on Sunday, was the Pelicans\u2019 most lopsided loss since October.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always responded. We\u2019ve had our moments where we\u2019ve not been our best, and the biggest thing now is responding and finishing out the season in a competitive fashion,\u201d New Orleans interim coach James Borrego said at the team\u2019s practice on Tuesday. \u201cThis group has played with competitive spirit and fought every night. \u2026 The goal is now to respond in Portland.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Orleans is 1-2 against the Blazers on the season, though the teams haven\u2019t met since Jan. 2. In that matchup \u2014 a 122-109 Portland win \u2014 Blazers All-Star Deni Avdija finished with 34 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n
Similarly outstanding all-around play from Avdija at Los Angeles on Tuesday helped buoy Portland, as he finished with 28 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.<\/p>\n
Veteran guard Jrue Holiday, a former Pelican, knocked down seven 3-pointers on 15 attempts against the Clippers on the way to 30 points.<\/p>\n
At 16.1 points per game, Holiday is one of six currently healthy Blazers averaging in double-figure scoring per game. Avdija\u2019s 23.1 points per game lead the way.<\/p>\n
Portland\u2019s Jerami Grant will miss his second consecutive game due to a strained right calf.<\/p>\n
Trey Murphy III, New Orleans\u2019 leading scorer at 21.7 points per game, has missed the last three contests because of a sprained right ankle. He is listed as questionable for Thursday. Dejounte Murray\u2019s 19 points paced the Pelicans in their loss to Houston on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winners in seven of their past nine games, the Portland Trail Blazers look to continue their strong stretch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-693410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanspelicans","14":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116333824103388060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}