Portland routs Sacramento behind Blake’s six three pointers

The Portland Trailblazers have found a clever way to keep their personnel fresh during a busy scheduling spot—they’ve been blowing teams out of the building, allowing their starters to get plenty of rest in late game “garbage time”.  In the first of a back-to-back road game situation, Portland obliterated the struggling Sacramento Kings 117-96.

The rout of Sacramento was the Blazers second blowout win in as many games, having destroyed Chicago 116-74 in the Rose City on Wednesday.  This one wasn’t quite that one sided, but it was essentially over by the end of the third quarter which afforded Portland an opportunity to give Greg Oden, Brandon Roy and Steve Blake plenty of rest in the fourth.  Portland never trailed after the midway point of the first quarter and led 28-25 at the end of the period.  They extended that lead in the 2nd, heading to the locker room at halftime with a 57-51 advantage.

Portland put the game away with a dominant third quarter performance, outscoring Sacramento 37-18 to head to the 4th leading 94-69.  Most of the Blazers’ starters rode the bench for the final frame which should have them in top form for Saturday night’s game at Phoenix.  Despite the early exit for Portland’s best players, Sacramento could never get within 20 points.

As is typical when the Blazers are playing their best, the scoring output was balanced across the roster led by Steve Blake’s 20 points which included six three pointers.  LaMarcus Aldridge added 19 points and Brandon Roy chipped in 16.  Greg Oden played well in limited action, scoring 7 points while hauling in 8 rebounds in only 19 minutes of action. 

Blazers’ coach Nate McMillan was understandably pleased with his team’s third quarter outburst:

"What a third quarter. We came out very aggressive and pushed the ball. We were very aggressive and made our shots. We quit turning the ball over and we controlled the boards, that is what paid off for us."

Sacramento lost for the fifth time in their past seven games.  The Kings were paced by 19 points and 12 boards from power forward Jason Thompson, and center Brad Miller added 16 points.  After the game Kings’ coach Reggie Theus served notice to the rest of the league about the talent possessed by this young Blazers squad:

"These guys are pretty good, I mean they played great. They shot lights out. I can't even dissect the game tonight because I think we played OK and they just played great."