Blazers make it eight straight

Hornets the latest victim

By Kerry Eggers

LocalNewsDaily.com, Dec 17, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (11 Reader comments)

When in doubt, put the ball in Brandon Roy’s hands.

That’s what the Trail Blazers did when it counted Monday night, and the 2006-07 NBA Rookie of the Year responded by scoring 12 of his game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter of Portland’s 88-76 victory over New Orleans at the Rose Garden.

It was the eighth straight victory for the Blazers (13-12), assuring them of their first winning month in 18 months over three seasons with six games yet to play in December. And it pushed them over the .500 mark for the first time this season.

“The (win) streak is great, but we really haven’t talked much about it,” Portland coach Nate McMillan said. “Before the game, I told the guys we can guarantee ourselves a winning month and have a winning record. Those things we used to try to get them to focus on the game tonight.”

This was a different kind of win than the first seven during the streak for the Blazers, who shot better than 50 percent four times and scored 100 or more five times over that span.

For the longest time Monday, it appeared the Blazers – who had played a night earlier in Denver – were shooting at a moving target. They shot .341 from the field through a first half in which they trailed 39-37 at intermission.

The Hornets (15-10) were struggling, too. Portland warmed up in the second half, shooting .500 (19 of 38), seizing the advantage late in the third quarter and then securing the victory as the visitors wilted down the stretch.

The first half “was like our worst half of the month,” said Roy, named as the Western Conference Player of the Week for the second straight week before the game. “Tonight, we had to face some adversity. We weren’t making shots. We could have folded and said it wasn’t our night, but we kept fighting back. The second half, we started making shots, and once we got the lead, we kept it.”

That was clearly a matter of pride for McMillan.

“We’ve talked (for some time) about having a game like this – a night where we weren’t shooting the ball well, having to lift each other,” the third-year Blazer coach said. “Tonight was one of those games. It was a gut check.

“You’re not always going to shoot the ball as well as we’ve shot it (during the streak). It was ugly for three quarters ... but they kept working, worked their way out of it and beat a very good team. This was a really big game for us.”

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