Wizards at Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers went from the hottest team in the NBA to a three-game losing streak in the span of one road trip and are happy to be heading home to host the Washington Wizards on Tuesday. The Trail Blazers had won 14 of 16 games, including the first three of the six-game trip, before falling flat over the last week.
Portland allowed an average of 118.7 points in losses at the Celtics, Raptors and the Pistons, capped by Sunday’s 123-103, wire-to-wire loss in Detroit. “We knew it was going to be a tough trip,” Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts told reporters. “It was good to get the three wins and certainly after winning the first three you hope to get another win or two on the road, but we’re going to be tested from here on out. It’s not going to be easy and this is an example that every win is going to be hard to come by.” The Wizards had won four straight to put themselves back at .500 and on the brink of the top eight in the Eastern Conference before falling in the last two games. Saturday’s 100-99 loss to the Indiana Pacers not only cost Washington a game against a team it is chasing in the standings but also saw it once again lose guard Bradley Beal to an injury.
TV: 10 p.m. ET, NBATV, CSN Mid-Atlantic (Washington), KGW (Portland)
ABOUT THE WIZARDS (30-32): Beal finally got a chance to take off the mask he had been wearing to protect a broken nose on Saturday and returned to the starting lineup before going down in the third quarter with a sprained pelvis. “It’s tough,” Wizards point guard John Wall told reporters. “I know (Beal’s) frustrated, he’s been coming off the bench most of the time he’s been back and putting a lot of work in to come back and be healthy and help this team make a final playoff push.” Beal, who missed a month earlier in the season with a leg injury, will travel with the team and is day-to-day.
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (33-31): Portland was on its way to the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference and had an eye on No. 5 before the recent slide. The Trail Blazers enter the week in seventh place in the West and sit only three games ahead of the ninth-place Utah Jazz. “We’re .500, it’s not the end of the world,” guard C.J. McCollum told reporters at the end of the road trip. “It would have been nice to go 4-2, 5-1 or even 6-0 but realistically speaking, a lot of teams don’t go 6-0 on these type of trips in nine days, 10 days. So we’ve just got to try to compete, try to win the games that we should win and refocus, try to get one when we get back home.”
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Wizards G Alan Anderson (ankle) is averaging 9.2 points off the bench in five games since his return.
2. Trail Blazers G Damian Lillard has scored 20 or more points in 14 straight games.
3. Portland took the first meeting 108-98 in Washington on Jan. 18.