MINNEAPOLIS — Wesley Matthews had 23 points while LaMarcus Aldridge added 21 to lead the Portland Trail Blazers to a 95-81 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night.
Dante Cunningham had career highs with 18 points and 13 rebounds for the Blazers, who have now won 16 straight games against the Timberwolves and five in a row overall, their longest winning streak of the season.
Kevin Love finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds, just barely extending his double-double streak to 41 games, the longest since Moses Malone had 44 in a row in the 1982-83 season. He only attempted seven shots and was outworked all night by Cunningham and Aldridge.
Martell Webster led the Wolves with 17 points, but Minnesota got just one point, no rebounds and no assists combined from starters Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer and Wes Johnson.
The Blazers held Minnesota to 39 percent shooting and scored 22 points off 18 Timberwolves turnovers. They started the game on an 18-2 run and never led by fewer than 10 points in the second half.
Rudy Fernandez scored 18 points off the bench and Portland out-rebounded the best rebounding team in the league, 41-35. The Blazers are now 21-11 without star guard Brandon Roy, who has been on the shelf after having arthroscopic surgery on both knees.
Coach Nate McMillan said before the game he still wasn’t sure when Roy and injured center Marcus Camby would return, but Aldridge has the Blazers humming right along without them.
Aldridge has always been productive, but he’s really blossomed since Roy went down. He was named Western Conference player of the week on Monday after averaging 38.3 points in the previous three games.
Commissioner David Stern chose Love, the league’s leading rebounder and one of its best 3-point shooters, over Aldridge to replace the injured Yao Ming in the All-Star Game on Sunday, a slight that has motivated Aldridge for weeks.
In his first matchup against Love since the snub, Aldridge came out ultra-aggressive. He scored 11 points on 5-for-9 shooting and tried to throw down a massive dunk right over Love in the paint, but had it bounce off the back iron.
The hard-nosed Blazers defense also held Love, who again was without fellow scorer Michael Beasley because of a sprained ankle, without a field goal attempt for the first 20 minutes of the game.
It was another flat home performance for the Wolves, who are 0-4 at Target Center in February and have lost those games by an average of 16.2 points. They’ve been hurting for fan support for several years, but the Target Center attendance on Monday night was glaring even by their standards.
The Wolves announced a crowd of just over 11,000, but far fewer were actually in attendance. In the second quarter, seven fans were counted sitting in sections 218-224 of the upper level. Those sections wrap the back of the building from one corner to the other behind one basket.
NOTES
Blazers C Sean Marks got some run in the third quarter while Cunningham and Joel Przybilla were on the bench in foul trouble. He hit a 3-pointer in the corner, his second long-range shot this year.
Aldridge joins Clyde Drexler and Brandon Roy as the only Trail Blazers to win player of the week twice in one season. He’s also the fourth player in the Western Conference to win it twice this season after garnering the honor for the week ending Jan. 23.
