Suns at Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers are one of the hottest teams in the league and are trying to run away with the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference. The Phoenix Suns, who visit the Trail Blazers on Saturday, own a 10-game losing streak and are focusing less on wins and more on player development over the final month.
Portland won five straight and eight of its last nine to push 1 1/2 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets in the race for the eighth spot entering play on Friday. "I think we’re playing with a greater sense of urgency," star point guard Damian Lillard told reporters after Thursday's 117-107 win over the Houston Rockets. "It feels like we're playing like the team that we expected ourselves to be from the beginning of the season. It’s frustrating because we wish we could have been playing this brand of basketball months ago, and we wouldn’t even be in the position that we’re in, but I feel like it couldn’t have come at a greater time." The Suns spent last weekend setting records for the youngest lineup to start an NBA game and continue to see positive signs from several of the youngsters. "We're fighting out there," second-year guard Devin Booker told reporters. "We're trying to get wins. We know it's the end of the season. A lot of teams are shut down, but we're young in this league. We're trying to make a name for ourselves, so we're out here competing."
TV: 10 p.m. ET, FSN Arizona (Phoenix), CSN Northwest (Portland)
ABOUT THE SUNS (22-54): Booker is emerging as a scoring machine and poured in another 33 points on 13-of-22 shooting in Thursday's 124-118 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, bringing his average over the last four games to 38.5 points. Rookie point guard and fellow Kentucky product Tyler Ulis is stepping up as well and delivered his second straight double-double with 16 points and 13 assists in 40 minutes on Thursday. "We're going to have tough games when we fight back against veteran teams and we're going to have teams that kind of handle us," rookie power forward Marquese Chriss told the Arizona Republic. "We just got to turn it around and switch the tempo of the game. Just us growing and gaining experience are the biggest things we take away from this."
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (37-38): Portland clinched the tiebreaker over Denver by beating the Nuggets 122-113 on Tuesday and will play four of its final seven games against teams out of the playoff race. "Right now, we’ve just got to continue to focus on having that same mentality and approaching each game with the same level of urgency and playing complete games," Lillard told reporters. "I think we’re playing really complete games right now." Lillard is doing his part and outplayed MVP candidate James Harden on Thursday while finishing with 31 points on 10-of-18 shooting and 11 assists.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Trail Blazers SG Allen Crabbe scored 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting on Thursday after managing two points on 1-of-8 in the previous game.
2. Suns SF T.J. Warren is averaging 19.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in the last three games.
3. Portland took two of the first three meetings this season, with the lone loss coming in overtime at Phoenix on Nov. 2.