A Blazers win and Clippers loss in the same night was the perfect scenario.
The Portland Trail Blazers are now two games over .500 at 40-38 following a Thursday night victory over the New Orleans Pelicans, 118-106. The win was another extremely important one for Portland given its push to climb the Western Conference standings and hold onto the eighth seed.
With the LA Clippers losing Thursday night, the Blazers moved back into that No. 8 spot and now sit a half-game ahead of LA. Portland has also now won eight of its last 10 games.
As a team, the story in this one was three-point shooting. Portland more than doubled New Orleans in made threes and did it while shooting nearly the same percentage from beyond the arc. The Blazers went 20-of-51 from deep, while the Pelicans finished 9-of-24. When a team is hitting at that kind of rate, volume can be the difference, and it clearly was for Portland in this game. Otherwise, the matchup was fairly even across the board, which made the three-point line the biggest separator.
Portland had three players score at least 20 points, with Jrue Holiday leading the way with 27. Deni Avdija added 26, Toumani Camara finished with 23, and Matisse Thybulle and Scoot Henderson combined for 27 more. It was an impressive win for a team that continues to find ways to stack results during the most important stretch of the season.
But things do not get any easier from here. The Blazers will be in Denver on Monday night to take on the Nuggets, then head to San Antonio on Wednesday before returning home for what could be a huge game against the Clippers on Friday. Three of Portland’s toughest and most important games of the season are now directly in front of it as the team looks to hold onto that eighth seed in the West.