PORTLAND, Ore. – Damian Lillard had 24 points and the Portland Trail Blazers snapped a two-game slide with a confidence-boosting 128-122 victory over the NBA-leading Toronto Raptors on Friday night.
Zach Collins scored 16 points and Seth Curry added a season-high 13, including three key three-pointers at the start of the fourth quarter. Both were part of a Portland bench that outscored Toronto’s reserves 58-26.
Kawhi Leonard returned after missing two games and had 28 points for the Raptors (23-8), who played without All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry. Danny Green added 19 points and 11 rebounds, matching his season high with five threes.
Portland led by 16 in the fourth quarter but Leonard and C.J. Miles made consecutive threes to pull the Raptors to 117-113 with 2:44 left.
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Lillard hit a three-pointer for Portland before Leonard had another three and Fred VanVleet made a layup to get Toronto to 120-118. CJ McCollum and Al Farouq-Aminu answered with consecutive threes to extend Portland’s lead to 126-118 with just under a minute to go.
Leonard dunked on the other end, but the Raptors couldn’t get any closer.
Portland was in first place in the Western Conference after beating Washington on the road back on Nov. 18 to improve to 11-5. But the team lost eight of 11 going into Friday night’s game totumble into ninth in the conference.