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Blazers top T’wolves, and it wasn’t pretty

Minnesota shoots better, but Portland grinds out the ‘W’

By Erik Gundersen, Columbian Trail Blazers Writer
Published: January 31, 2016, 10:36pm

PORTLAND — If the evolution of the Blazers is to continue in the direction they want, the ways they win will have to come in different forms and Sunday, the circumstances gave them no choice but to win ugly.

The Trail Blazers defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 96-93 on a night when the Wolves had more assists, shot better from the field and the 3-point line.

The story with the Blazers this season has been this: It’s easy until it isn’t.

Sunday, Game 49, was Portland’s first victory of 3-points or less this season. If that sounds odd, it shouldn’t.

Their net-rating illustrates this point.

They have a better point differential than teams ahead of them like Houston and Memphis, but unlike those teams, they haven’t had the collective experience to pull out wins they otherwise shouldn’t.

It’s on uncharacteristic nights — like Sunday, with Damian Lillard in foul trouble and the Blazers struggling with their 3-point shot (22 percent) — that the Blazers have been a shell of a team, and not the playoff team they believe they are.

“It’s a great sign for us,” veteran big man Ed Davis said, who finished eight points and four rebounds in 27 minutes off the bench. “It’s going to be games that Dame and CJ (McCollum) are not shooting well from the field and we have to rely on the defensive end. I say all the time, when those two are rolling we can beat pretty much anybody.”

“It was a good grind-it-out game for us,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “The offense never really got on track for most of the night.”

The Blazers did especially well in containing Andrew Wiggins to 15 points and a 3-of-18 shooting night.

“We had to be into him all night,” Meyers Leonard said. “Post-ups, pick and rolls, knowing he wants to go over his left shoulder.”

Wiggins had a thunderous slam on Noah Vonleh but the young Timberwolves player stymieing the Blazers was rookie Karl-Anthony Towns.

Towns finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds, three blocks and a few emphatic dunks of his own.

McCollum ended up finding his groove, scoring 21 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the field.

The Blazers led by nine at halftime.

Although they’ve been a solid third-quarter team for much of the season, the Blazers were outplayed by the Wolves after halftime.

Towns and Gorgui Dieng outplayed Portland’s big men, both posting double-doubles through three quarters.

It hurt the Blazers that Lillard picked up his fourth foul in the third quarter, ending his normal third quarter run four minutes early.

Gerald Henderson and Allen Crabbe joined Leonard and Davis in a big night for the bench, outscoring the Minnesota bench 40-22.

Stotts went with Leonard and Davis down the stretch as Leonard’s shooting threat helped take the disruptive Towns out of the paint.

Things got interesting when Ricky Rubio hit a 3-pointer to cut the Blazers lead to two points with 10.8 seconds left.

Stotts, ever the coach, lamented that the team missed an opportunity to make their fourth straight win another blowout.

But with a playoff birth in mind and having one of their worst offensive performances of the month, those concerns could be secondary.

“It was disappointing — up nine at half, I wish we could have kind of extended the lead a little, but they came back and we did what we needed to do,” Stotts said.

Doing what they need to do, especially in key moments, has been a frustrating proposition for this team.

They’ve done that over the last four games, but Sunday was different for them and if this really is growth, its coming faster than most would have imagined it could, even if they expected it all along.

“I don’t know if it’s a greater belief,” Stotts said. “I think we’ve had that belief all year to be perfectly honest.”

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Columbian Trail Blazers Writer