Blazers pull away in second half for 114-104 for 8th straight win

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The Portland Trail Blazers, for the second night in a row, didn’t play a pretty game. They may want to delete the .mov files on their external hard drives from the first half of both of these games. But all that mattered was the final score, 114-104 and an 8th straight win.

The difference, mostly in the second half was LaMarcus Aldridge. Aldridge put his stamp on the game and dominated a team that didn’t have an answer for him. He schooled the athletic but raw Nerlens Noel even though Noel had some nice plays, the vet got the better of him and the Sixers front line.

The L-Train scored 21 of his season high 33 points in the second half and Chris Kaman also helped the Blazers finishing kick by scoring 6 of his 8 points on the night in the fourth quarter.

It was an ugly start for the Blazers who committed 16 turnovers in the first half. They were shooting a pretty good 48.8 percent from the field but the turnovers were holding them back. Additionally, the Sixers fought hard all game. Their high-pace style will create some random things to happen and the Blazers struggled early.

The SIxers led by 2 at halftime but pushed their lead up to 6 points twice before the Blazers started to assert themselves while Aldridge led the way.

And the Sixers showed their struggles.

Damian Lillard had all day to shoot this three-pointer.

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And then towards the end of the game, Philadelphia point guard Michael Carter-Williams threw a pass to referee Haywoode Workman who looked like he was about to spot up for a three.

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The Sixers are awful and again, it’s not fun to see such an uncompetitive bunch. But they played hard and did everything they could to prevent Portland from getting a rhythm.

But as the night wore on, the Blazers started to find their game and Aldridge opened things up. The Blazers didn’t shoot too well from three, going 7-for-27, but it didn’t matter too much.

Portland’s size difference was one of the easiest things to see against the younger Sixers. Portland absolutely dominated the boards, out-rebounding Philadelphia 55-29. The Sixers had almost as many assists as the Blazers but they just couldn’t match Portland’s power game. Kaman gobbled up 9 boards in less than 19 minutes and ever Blazers starter had at least four.

Other than the size difference and Portland’s sitcktoitiveness, there’s not much else to take away from the game other than the Blazers are very good and the Sixers are very bad.

Portland looks for their 9th straight win on Wednesday against Charlotte. The Hornets just lost by 21 at home to the Clippers and they’ll surely want to have something sweeter before the holidays.