The Portland Trail Blazers pulled off a big win at The Moda Center Monday night, before going on their final road trip of the season, tough games at Utah and Phoenix.
The night however, belonged to Coach Terry Stotts, and the big milestones he reached with this win. More on Coach Stotts in a moment.
As mentioned, the Blazers got a convincing 140-121 win over the Houston Rockets. Portland set a franchise record 50 points in a quarter, taking place in the first, including 12/16 on 3’s. CJ McCollum led the Blazers with 21 and Powell to end the high-scoring quarter.
At the half, Portland led 79-63, the third time the Blazers put up 79 points in the half since 1992. Houston showed some life and wanted to make it somewhat interesting in the 4th, but luckily, Portland wouldn’t let them take over the game and their lead. Four Blazers finished with 20 plus points, Damian Lillard 34, McCollum and Powell both with 28, and Nurkic 22.
“The ball movement. We knew they were switching, they were going to be rotating, the way we were getting to the paint kicking out of using ‘Nurk’ in the post, having them double team. We knew looks would be open, so we just had to take more confidence, and we were able to do that to start the game,” Powell told Brooke Olzendam in the walk-off interview, on what was clicking for them offensively.
With the win, Coach Stotts became 1 of 10 coaches to win 1000 games, and it was also his 400th win as coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
“It’s special,” Stotts told KATU’s Joe Becker in his (Stotts) post-game conference. “Not a lot of coaches are able to be with a franchise long enough to win 400 games, and it has been a great 9 years. Our work is not done this year, but to get 400 is pretty special with one franchise. Not a lot of coaches get an opportunity to do that.”
It is worth noting, Nassir Little left the game with back spasms and played only 5 minutes. No word on if he’ll play in Wednesday’s game or not.