The Portland Trail Blazers’ 96-93 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves at Moda Center didn’t showcase any breathtaking highlight-reel plays destined for SportsCenter’s ‘Top Plays,’ nor did it include any eye-popping stat lines.
But a win is a win, and Sunday’s victory was a fourth-straight triumph for an eight-place Trail Blazers side eyeing a playoff spot come April. Most importantly, it showed growth for a young Portland squad in its ability to close-out a victory by a narrow margin.
“It was a good grind-it-out game for us,” Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts said before pointing out his team’s deficiencies in the win. “The offense never really got on track for most of the night, but our defense was pretty solid for the most part. We did a good job on tendencies. We didn’t rebound the ball particularly well the first half, but I thought we took care of that better the second half.
“It was disappointing – up nine at half, I wish we could have kind of extended the lead a little, but they came back and we did what we needed to do.”
Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum each scored 21 points in the win to help Portland to victory. Each Trail Blazer guard was crucial down the stretch in preventing Minnesota from forcing overtime or claiming the lead in the final minutes.
“I think the difference has been execution,” McCollum explained. “We’re executing better down the stretch. Defensively, we’re getting enough stops to win the game. Like I’ve said before, when you lose close games, you learn how to bounce back and look at the film, see what you did wrong and you try to correct it the next time.”
For the NBA’s third-youngest roster with an average player age of 24.6 years, the growing confidence brought on by a four-game win streak entering February can make Portland all the more dangerous in the second half of the season.
“We’ve known since the summer that we have a good group of talent top-to-bottom, guys who can do a lot of things,” forward-center Meyers Leonard said. “I think it’s starting to show because we’re executing better down the stretch that we have guys that can get stops and make big plays. That’s trusting the next guy. It’s cool to see it start to come together.
“Like Terry [Stotts] mentioned after the last game: We haven’t even really scratched the surface.”
