T-Wolves Snap Blazers’ 5-Game Win Streak

The Portland Trail Blazers (22-5) are certainly this year’s major surprise story in the NBA, but the Minnesota Timberwolves (13-13) didn’t appear impressed or intimidated by the West’s top squad in their meeting with Portland on Wednesday night.

After grabbing a large halftime lead, the T-Wolves held on late to defeat the Blazers 120-109, effectively snapping Portland’s five-game win streak. As usual, Kevin Love led the way for Minnesota, coming up just one assist shy of a triple-double with 29 points, 15 rebounds and 9 assists.

“Awesome,” Wolves point guard Ricky Rubio said, according to ESPN.com. “There’s no words to describe. He’s doing a great job leading this team in scoring, rebounding, even assisting. He’s taking my job.”

Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Martin also contributed heavily to the win, netting 30 and 22 points, respectively.

Once again, Damian Lillard was the star for Portland, scoring 36 points, but the Blazers failed to win the battles inside the painted area against Love and Pekovic. Minnesota ended up outscoring Portland 72-34 inside as LaMarcus Aldridge put in just 15 points – his lowest offensive output since scoring 12 points against the Bulls on Nov. 22.

“Just one of those nights,” Aldridge said. “I couldn’t throw a rock in a lake if I tried to, even if I was standing in the water.”

Led by Love – who had a double-double after just 13 minutes of play – the Wolves dominated the first half, building a 26-point lead. However, the Blazers started to catch fire in the second half, making a game out of it by the fourth quarter, but the lead proved to be to large to overcome, even for Lillard and Portland’s bevy of sharp outside shooters.

“You know last year, that probably would’ve been a game where we just said all right we’re going to give it a shot in the third quarter and in the fourth quarter we probably would’ve ended up laying down,” Lillard said. “But we fought back, and I think with a minute and a half it was a game.”

Look for Portland to bounce back against the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday and for the Timberwovles to keep things rolling against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday.