Daily Vanguard

December 19th, 2007

Nine is nice

If Trail Blazers head coach Nate McMillan was just a smidge subdued after his team outlasted the Toronto Raptors Wednesday night, he can be forgiven. Toronto sucked the energy out of the young Portland squad and looked poised to pull out of the Rose City with a win and the satisfaction of ending the Blazers’ eight-game win streak.

Luckily for the Blazers, Brandon Roy is quickly reaching the next level and is developing into a legit superstar. His drive and lay-up with less than seven minutes left gave Portland an 89-87 lead it would not relinquish as the Blazers moved to 14-12 on the season with a101-96 win.

Portland used stifling fourth-quarter defense to quiet a Raptors team that had been shooting the ball at a 55 percent clip. Toronto star Chris Bosh had 18 points and 11 boards for the Raptors, and point man Jose Calderon sizzled for most of the game, finishing with 19 points and nine assists.

The Raptors played without starting point guard T.J. Ford, who missed his fifth game in a row after sustaining a head injury.

For Portland,LaMarcus Aldridge returned after a five-game absence due to a foot injury and helped slow Bosh in the final frame when Portland held Toronto to 13 points. The man simply known as L.A. finished with 15 points and seven boards on the night.

The Blazers also took advantage of superb performances fromMartell Webster and Steve Blake. Webster scored 15 points, including 4 of 5 from three-point land and a tantalizing third-quarter jam, and Blake had 14 points on 6 of 9 shooting.

Roy pieced together a well-rounded game, amassing 25 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, as he recovered from a case of stomach flu.

“We just fought till the end,” Roy said. “It (the win streak) is great, it’s exciting and it’s exciting for our fans. Nine games is great but we’ve got a big one against Denver (this Friday). We have a chance to maybe move into first place in our division.”

Roy also had the play of the game Wednesday: a driving lay-in against Bosh where Roy went up with his right hand, saw Bosh was going to block him and switched the ball mid-air to his left for a nifty score that whipped the Rose Garden crowd of 16,066 into a thunderous frenzy.

“Brandon during this period has been spectacular,” McMillan said. “He’s just taking over the game. No question, he’s all-star caliber. That one move where he switched from the right hand to the left hand was reminiscent of the Michael Jordan move in the Finals a few years ago.”

The Blazers will go for win number 10 in a row against the Nuggets Friday night in a game that could determine first place in the Northwest Division.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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