----- The Portland Trail Blazers complete a 4-1 road trip with a 103-91 win over the New York Knicks Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
The Trail Blazers survived a horrible fourth quarter, in which they went nearly nine minutes without a field goal and yet they still defeated the New York Knicks by double-digits 103-91 Monday night in New York. With the win, Portland finished up their five-game road trip at 4-1 and won their third-straight game for the first time this season.
The most important stretch of the game for the Blazers came in the third quarter. Damian Lillard scored 17 of his game-high 32 points in the third when the Blazers outscored the Knicks 37-27 opening up a 26 point lead heading into the final period.
Lillard made an impact on the record books tonight when he dished out the 2,574th assist of his career moving past Rod Strickland into fourth on the Blazers all-time assists list.
Portland (13-8) got 17 points from Pat Connaughton on 7-for-9 shooting and Jusuf Nurkic added 12 points nine rebounds, and six assists. Noah Vonleh continued his strong play with eight points and 12 rebounds and Evan Turner added 10 points off the bench.
New York (10-10) got 22 points and seven rebounds from Kristaps Porzingis and 16 points from Tim Hardaway Jr. The Knicks have now lost three-straight and four of their last six games.
Next up- The Blazers will have two days off before hosting the Milwaukee Bucks Thursday night at Moda Center. The game is scheduled to tip off at 7:00 PM.
Chad's take- Credit Terry Stotts for the Blazers strong finish to the road trip because he made the decision he had to and benched Maurice Harkless for poor play. He moved Pat Connaughton into the starting and his shooting has provided better spacing which has given more room for Lillard, McCollum, and Nurkic to work with on the offensive end.