Trail Blazers vs Kings Monday, 01/24/11 AT 07:00PM

Streak Snapped as Kings Knock Off Trail Blazers

01/24/11

Written by: Grant Lucas / avg. rating: 4.5

The season-best five-game winning streak is gone. As is the undefeated home record against sub-.500 teams. Along with LaMarcus Aldridge, the Portland Trail Blazers (25-21) were shut down Monday night, falling to the Sacramento Kings (10-32) 96-81.

"We weren't on our game," Wesley Matthews said. "[The Kings] are a team full of runs. They've got a lot of talent, a lot of people who can score the ball. When one person is hitting, it gets contagious. [Demarcus] Cousins started out, ahd a good first quarter, and you saw it trickle through the whole team and we just didn't do anything about it."

Portland's defeat snapped a 13-0 record at home against teams with a record below .500, as well as the eight-straight victories against the Kings.

"It was both," Head Coach Nate McMillan said regarding the Kings' defensive pressure and Portland's rough night. "It was the Kings, but I think it was certainly us. It just didn't seem like we came with that edge we've been playing with here lately... We played as if we could flip a switch here and [Sacramento] got their confidence."

Matthews led the way for Portland with 21 points, while Andre Miller tallied 18 points and five assists. Nicolas Batum registered 16 points and nine rebounds, but Aldridge, the Western Conference Player of the Week, was held to just nine points on 4-of-14 shooting. This game marked the first time since Dec. 5 that Aldridge failed to reach double figures.

"I was just a little tired tonight," Aldridge said. "I tried to get myself going, but I never could really get going. Their defense was really good, and Dalembert played great defense on me tonight."

McMillan said that the length of Dalembert contributed to Aldridge's shortcomings.

"We tried to run some things to move [Aldridge] around, to get them to switch," he said. "The pick and rolls, bring him out away from the basket. He covered not only [Aldridge] but a couple times, we went to the basket and [Dalembert] defended the basket also tonight - four blocked shots. So he basically had a big presence on the defensive end of the floor."

Off the bench, Dante Cunningham posted eight points and a career-high four blocks, but the rest of the reserves struggled from the floor, combining for 20 percent shooting.

For Sacramento, it was Tyreke Evans who stepped up, notching 26 points for the Kings, while Carl Landry chipped in with 16 points and eight boards. Beno Udrih and Cousins added 14 points apiece, as Sacramento earned its fourth road win of the season.

"We just want to win," Evans said. "We've got a good enough team to beat anybody in this league. We've just been in those games that we couldn't finish. We just want to work on getting better at finishing games out strong. That's the main thing that coach preached to us in the locker room. I think, once we get that, we can be a good team."

The Kings' head coach, Paul Westphal, said that his team put in great effort, saying that "that's what it feels like when you get a lead and hold a lead."

"We played together," he said. "We played with an idea of what we were trying to do, and we made adjustments depending on how their defense played us. We are doing a better job of getting on the same page and executing for 48 minutes rather than 44, or whatever it's been."

Portland shot 39.5 percent from the field, recording just 15 field goals on 44 attempts in the second half, including a 6-for-22 mark in the fourth quarter.

"I said this last game even when we got a win, we've got to stop coming out and letting teams jump on us," Matthews said. "This time we couldn't do anything about it. We fought for the most part, but it's tough when you give them 31 points off turnovers and 16 offensive rebounds, on top of a bad first quarter. That's an uphill climb."

The Trail Blazers also turned the ball over 19 times in the game - 10 in the second half - that resulted in 31 Sacramento points, as the Kings hit 50 percent of their shots and 5-of-9 from three-point range.

"I thought it was, at times, trying to force some things, trying to do too much," McMillan said. "As good as we were last game, we were bad taking care of the ball tonight. A number of guys - we had [five] guys with two or more turnovers, so it was a team effort in that department."

Aldridge said that Portland wasn't making smart decisions, adding that the King defense put enough pressure on the Trail Blazers to give the ball up.

The Trail Blazers came out of the gate cold, missing six of their first eight shots from the field, while the Kings, on the other hand hit three of their first four shots. With five points from Cousins, Sacramento led 8-4.

Batum accounted for six of Portland's initial 12 points, as the Trail Blazers rode an 8-2 run to grab a 12-10 advantage.

Soon after, Udrih tallied six-straight points for the Kings, who took a brief 18-16 lead before Rudy Fernandez drove to the whole and earned a goaltending call on Dalembert.

Dalembert came down with an Evans missed layup and threw it down to cap a 6-0 stretch that put Sacramento up 24-18 with less than a minute remaining.

Portland trailed 25-20 after the first quarter, as the Kings shot 55 percent from the floor, led by Evans' eight points and Udrih's seven. Batum and Matthews paced Portland with six points apiece, but the Trail Blazers commited five turnovers, which were converted in eight Sacramento points.

The beginning of the second quarter resembled the onset of the first, with Portland sinking just one of its first seven shots - six-straight since Cunningham made the first field goal. The Trail Blazers fell behind 29-22 before Cunningham snapped the streak with a mid-range jumper.

Evans later pocketed a three-ball from the wing, extending Sacramento's lead to 10 points midway through the period. Udrih soon added another trey to make it a 37-24 ball game.

With Portland still behind, Matthews fed Miller, who took it right past Udrih for the bucket, capping an 11-2 string that narrowed the deficit to 39-35 with a litte more than three minutes left in the half.

Fernandez put up a three with less than five seconds left. It hit nothing, but Miller hauled it in underneath and reversed it in to bring the Trail Blazers within two at 45-43 entering halftime.

Matthews went into the locker room with 11 points and Batum contributed with eight. But Sacramento held its ground behind 15 and 10 points from Evans and Udrih, respectively.

After exchanging turnovers to open the half, Portland grabbed its first lead since the first quarter with a three-ball from Matthews. Cousins answered with an 18-footer to put the Kings up 47-46. Matthews later hit his second-straight trey to even things up at 49.

Matthews canned a long jumper to polish off a 9-2 run, as Portland led 55-51 thanks to eight points from Matthews in the period. Casspi, however, hit back-to-back three-pointers during an 8-0 Sacramento stretch to earn the Kings a four-point edge midway through the quarter. That run extended to 10-straight before Batum stepped into a three-ball to cut the lead to three at 61-58.

Once again, Portland tied the game up at 63, this time when Patty Mills canned a shot from downtown. The Kings responded with four-straight, including a reverse lay-in from Landry.

Sacramento carried a 70-65 advantage into the fourth quarter, thanks to 10 points in the third from Casspi. Matthews added 10 points in the period for Portland, but the Trail Blazers gave the ball away six times in the period that Sacramento turned into seven points.

The Kings hit nine of their 18 attempts in the period, including two out of three from long range, while the Trail Blazers went 4-of-7 from deep and 40.9 percent from the floor.

Spanning the end of the third and start of the fourth, Sacramento put together a 12-2 run after Jason Thompson tipped in a missed lay-up, as the Kings built a 75-65 advantage.

With eight consecutive points for Miller, however, the Trail Blazers cut the King lead to four 77-73, ending an 8-2 Sacramento string.

After having their eight-point advantage trimmed to four, Evans gave the Kings some breathing room with a three-pointer, his second of the night, to put his squad up 88-79. Casspi then tipped in a missed shot to add to Sacramento's advantage with less than two minutes remaining. Portland never recovered, missing its six of its final seven attempts.

Portland reached the free throw line just 11 times in the contest, while the Kings, on the other hand, attempted 20 shots from the charity stripe. Not only that, but the Trail Blazers recorded just 16 assists on the night - 10 of which came in the first half.

"We worked and we talked about that," McMillan said of the potential to take the Kings lightly. "No game is a given. You never approach a game like that. Sometimes you can have mental letdowns and that happens, but we're not in a position to approach a game like that."

Aldridge said that the Trail Blazers need to rebound quickly and leave this performance in their rearview mirror.

"You have to [mentally bounce back]," he said. "You play so many games, you can't let it drag on. We just have to learn from it, put it behind us and come back strong."

The Trail Blazers continue their five-game homestand with a matchup against the Eastern Conference leading Boston Celtics (33-10) on Thursday night.

"[We] just have to get back to playing solid basketball, play better defense," Aldridge said. "I feel like tonight, we didn't play good defense. We need to get our rhythm back... We have to take care of the games now, and we didn't take care of business tonight."