PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 Deni Avdija scored 35 points, Donovan Clingan had 18 points and 13 rebounds, and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Clippers 116-97 on Friday night to take the inside track for the eighth seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n
If Portland beats the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, the Blazers will secure their spot in the 7-8 play-in game on Tuesday in Phoenix against the Suns.<\/p>\n
Robert Williams III had 13 points and 10 rebounds as Portland outrebounded the Clippers 46-35 and won the turnover battle despite leading the league in turnovers.<\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard led the Clippers with 24 points and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n
After Portland took a 55-35 first-half lead, the Clippers stormed back. Jordan Miller\u2019s 3-pointer gave the Clippers their first lead since the first quarter at 82-79 with 2:05 left in the third. But the lead was short-lived as Matisse Thybulle tied it at 82 on Portland\u2019s next possession.<\/p>\n
After the Clippers took an 88-86 lead with 11:06 left, Jrue Holiday tied the game at 88 with free throws and Williams gave Portland a 90-88 lead with 10:31 left.<\/p>\n
Williams scored on a dunk with 8:22 left to make it 92-88, forcing a timeout. Leonard missed a jumper out of the timeout and Avdija\u2019s 3-point play made it 95-88 with 7:41 left.<\/p>\n
Avdija made two foul shots to make it 99-90 with 4:51 left. Brook Lopez’s 3-pointer with 4:36 left made it 99-93. Portland\u2019s Toumani Camara made it 101-93 on Portland\u2019s next possession. Lopez was called for a technical foul with 3:26 left and Avdija made the shot to make it 104-93.<\/p>\n
Avdija hit a 3-pointer with 2:41 left to make it 109-93 and Portland never looked back.<\/p>\n
Portland’s Shaedon Sharpe returned after missing the last 28 games and finished with eight points in 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUp next<\/p>\n
Clippers: Host the Warriors on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Trail Blazers: Host the Kings on Saturday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 Deni Avdija scored 35 points, Donovan Clingan had 18 points and 13 rebounds, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[56984,2097,7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-708213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-ap-sports","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-blazers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116386482094077020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708213","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=708213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}