Los angeles: Point guard Damian Lillard scored 34 points and dished out eight assists and forward LaMarcus Aldridge added 31 points and 15 rebounds as the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 124-112 in their National Basketball Association game yesterday.
Lillard, who hit five 3-pointers, and Aldridge combined for 19 points in the fourth quarter, allowing Portland (49-27) to pull away for their fourth straight win.
The Lakers (25-49), losers of three of their last four, lost at home for the first time in three games. Los Angeles guard Nick Young scored a season-high 40 points but the Lakers lost despite the return of center Pau Gasol, point guard Steve Nash and reserve guard Xavier Henry.
The Blazers have six games left on their schedule, five of them at home. One more win will give them their 12th 50-win season in the franchise’s 44-year history. But the last four times the team won 50 or more games, they didn’t make it past the first round of the postseason.
Brooklyn forward Joe Johnson scored 32 points and the Nets set a franchise record with their 14th straight win at home, defeating the Houston Rockets to clinch a play-off berth (105-96).
Trailing for most of the game but never by less than nine points, the Rockets continued to snap at the Nets’ heels but could not overtake Brooklyn (40-33).
Playing without injured All Star Dwight Howard and guard Patrick Beverley, the Rockets (49-24) lost their second straight after a five-game winning streak was snapped on Saturday.
Rockets guard James Harden, the NBA’s fifth-leading scorer, had 26 points and seven assists.
The shorthanded Golden State Warriors rallied in regulation and then in overtime to take down the Dallas Mavericks in a crucial game in the Western Conference play-off picture.
With 13 seconds left in overtime and the score tied at 120, Warriors center Jermaine O’Neal blocked Mavs guard Monta Ellis’ runner on the baseline and Golden State guard Stephen Curry won it with a long contested jumper with 0.1 of a second on the clock.
Golden State (46-28), sixth in the Western Conference, played without starting big men Andrew Bogut and David Lee.
Dallas (44-31) fell to ninth in the West despite 33 points and 11 rebounds from Dirk Nowitzki.
Reuters
