Take a seat, Negative Nancy, the Blazers are winning again. After a dismal homestand, the Portland Trail Blazers have fired up a modest two game win streak. Granted one win was against the New Jersey Nets (basically a rec league team with their own arena) and the Toronto Raptors (not even American), but let’s not worry about such trivial things and just watch the wins pile up.
Last night’s 101-87 victory over Toronto was Portland’s second game in a row where they demonstrated masterful control of the ball (just nine turnovers combined in their last two games) and dominated the pace of the game. Rudy Fernandez scored 17 off the bench—showing up fellow Spaniard Jose Calderon—while Andre Miller added 18 points (plus 10 assists and seven rebounds), and Brandon Roy contributed 20 points to the winning cause.
The win, coupled with back-to-back losses from New Orleans, gives Portland a nice three game cushion in the playoff race. They’ll be in Chicago to play the Bulls tomorrow night. It will look exactly like this.