The Portland Trail Blazers gutted out another win in the NBA restart on Tuesday night, defeating the Houston Rockets 110-102 to pull within 1.5 games of the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference. Despite an uneven performance, the Blazers were clutch down the stretch, and took advantage of a poor shooting night from the small-ball Rockets. Carmelo Anthony’s three-pointer with less than a minute remaining sealed the deal in a back-and-forth battle.
The game was hardly the offensive slugfest many anticipated. Damian Lillard paced Portland with 21 points on the night, but was just 6-19 from the field.