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Weekend games are always more fun than games during the week. When I park and make my trek to the Moda Center, the surrounding streets are always teaming with bubbly Trail Blazer fans with a little more hop in their step. They seem a bit more excited heading to the arena than they do on say, a Tuesday. There’s no dreads about the work or school day tomorrow. The younglings are off their routine and ready to gorge themselves on fun and sugar. With no worries on their minds, everyone is ready to put everything into projecting confidence and faith in their home team’s direction during this stressful playoff race.

On last Thursday the Blazers projected confidence right back to their fans hoping for a play-off appearance. The word “dominate” hasn’t been apt enough to appear in a sentence describing the Blazers at all this season, but that’s just what they did against the New York Knicks. They led by double digits almost wire to wire in the contest, handling the Knicks with ease. Ego boosting games like that is what the Blazers need. Especially heading into next Tuesday’s game against their nemesis themselves, the Denver Nuggets.

Ideally, last night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves would have been another 48 minutes of game time for the Blazers to sharpen their teeth and add to their W column. The Timberwolves were on a back to back and had lost the night before in OT against the Lakers. They would logically be tired, deflated, and stunned, making them easy prey for a ravenous, playoff hungry Blazers team. They should have been able to shuffle them nicely, and save their energy to take care of the Lakers in LA tomorrow before the real show on Tuesday against the Nuggets.

After regulation, the Blazers blitzed past the Timberwolves, 112-100, with CJ McCollum scoring 32 points. A good win that puts more pressure on Denver, and keeps the Blazers scratching for that eighth playoff seed.

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Photos Lifted from trailblazers.com

Jusuf Nurkic opened the game up with a smooth side arm pass from the top of the key to CJ for a 100% uncontested lay-up. They were looking slippery from the get go. Noah Vonleh slithered into the key with what’s becoming a patented, strong-armed dunk the next up and down. The Blazers shot 57% from the field in the first, holding the lead for the entire quarter. They looked like they wanted to put it away early.

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Shabazz Napier got some time right at the beginning of the second quarter. Napier has been able to make his way in to some quality playing time in the last handful of games instead of just pulling up the rear when the game is in the bag. Probably because he is the most fiery player on the defensive side that comes off the bench. He only dumped in two points on the offensive side during his time in the second, but he did his best to keep the Timberwolves away from the hoop with his minutes.

The Blazers pushed their lead up to double digits with eight minutes left in the second. The Timberwolves would chip away at it, but the Blazers always built it back up. CJ was definitely behind the offensive wheel with 21 points before the half was over. Damian Lillard and Nurkic followed behind him with 12 and eight points, respectively. With a 14 point lead going into the second half, the Blazers were sitting pretty.

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The Blazers came out fast and loose to start the second half. Both teams were relatively equal in almost every column except for assists. The Blazers had double the Timberwolves total at 18 with five minutes left in the third. They were sharing the ball and taking the wise shots. Their field goal percentage continued to look good, sitting in the low to mid 60’s throughout the third. The Timberwolves were playing nice too, with four players at double digits in the points column, but they couldn’t catch the Blazers’ two digit lead in the quarter at all. The tail end of the third saw the Blazers bombarding Minnesota and taking a 20 point lead into the final quarter.

The Timberwolves were about as ineffective as they could be for the fourth. On an out of control break to the hoop, Kris Dunn went flying out of bounds and took an official out at the knees. Old softy Meyers Leonard rushed to the officials aid and manhandled him to his feet. It was cute, but didn’t stop the officials from making sure Leonard chalked up his standard four fouls for the game.

The Blazers weren’t taking great care of the ball in the final quarter. Their turnovers were up to 14 with four minutes left. Thank goodness they had a 20+ point cushion.

With just under three minutes left and a 19 point lead, coach Stotts cleared the bench and put Jake Layman and Pat Connaughton on the court. In fact, none of the Blazers’ starters played over 30 minutes in last nights game. They will no doubt be good and rested to sluff off the lowly Lakers tomorrow.


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As the magnificent Brian “Wheels” Wheeler would say, it was a great day to be a Blazer.