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Trailing by one point with less than one minute remaining in regulation, and with Portland Trail Blazers All-Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge sidelined by a left hand injury sustained during the second quarter, the Sacramento Kings needed to do one thing above all others: keep Damian Lillard from getting to the basket. You had one job , Kings. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] With Lillard dribbling high above the 3-point arc, defended by Sacramento point guard Darren Collison, Blazers big man Thomas Robinson raced up top to set a screen for his triggerman. As he did so, Kings forward Jason Thompson stepped just a bit too wide to his left on his attempt to hedge, creating a sliver of a lane to split the double team. Lillard, of course, found his way through that quicksilver crack, then streaked for the rim; Sacramento forward Derrick Williams thought briefly about jumping to protect the rim from Lillard's impending attack, but then, evidently, preferred not to appear on the poster. “I’ll still raise up and shoot the three if I need to, but tonight, I took what they gave me,” Lillard said after the game, according to Blazers digital reporter Casey Holdahl . “I knew Jason Thompson was showing really hard on pick and rolls and there’d be an opportunity for me to split. So that’s what I did. When I split, the defense was kind of off balance, I guess, and I was able to get to the rim.” I should say so. The result? Another late-game detonation for Dame , a three-point Portland lead, and one heck of a call from Blazers radio voice Brian Wheeler: Lillard's slam, which gave Portland a 95-92 advantage with 34 seconds left in the fourth, didn't entirely shut the door on the Kings, though. There were still some nervy moments in the final minute at the Moda Center, thanks to some uncharacteristically shaky free-throw shooting by Portland, as Lillard and the scuffling Nicolas Batum combined to split six potentially game-sealing freebies in the last 21 ticks. But thanks to some highly questionable late-game play-calling by Kings coach Tyrone Corbin and equally sloppy execution by a Sacramento club playing without star center DeMarcus Cousins — who beasted on the interior to the tune of 22 points, 19 rebounds and four blocks, but fouled out with 1:42 remaining after another run-in with iffy offensive foul calls, this time while being defended by former Kings lottery pick Robinson — the Kings couldn't come up with an answer, as the Blazers held on for a 98-94 win that snapped a three-game losing skid. Lillard finished with a Portland-high 22 points, albeit on 6-for-19 shooting, to go with six rebounds, five assists, three steals and zero turnovers in 38 minutes. It wasn't the prettiest win for the Blazers, who shot just 39.8 percent as a team (Lillard and Wesley Matthews combined to go just 4-for-21 from 3-point land), missed nine free throws and fell behind by as many as 13 points in the opening frame. But with Aldridge knocked out after slamming his non-shooting hand into Cousins' knee on defense , Stotts got some timely contributions from his reserves — nine points, three boards, a block and a steal from Meyers Leonard; nine points, three assists, two boards and two steals from Dorrell Wright; five points, six rebounds, three steals and those perhaps ill-gotten but inarguably important Boogie offensive foul calls from Robinson; six points and some much-needed jolts of offense and athleticism from Will Barton, etc. — and a cranked-up late-game defense that forced eight Kings turnovers in the fourth quarter to improve Portland's Northwest Division-leading record to 33-11, a full 10 games clear of the second-place Oklahoma City Thunder, and leaves Terry Stott's club 3 1/2 games back of the Golden State Warriors for the top spot in the Western Conference. "That's eight more possessions that we had that they didn't," Lillard said of Sacramento's fourth-quarter miscues, according to Nick Daschel of the Associated Press . "It came down to us just tightening up. We got a little more physical on defense, got a little more stingy, and offensively we valued those possessions." The Blazers might have to lean more on their defense (ranked fourth in the NBA in points allowed per possession) and pitch-ins from the pine for a little while. While X-rays on Aldridge's left hand were negative , it remains to be seen when he'll be ready to return to the court, which could complicate matters for a Portland club that's about to square off against some good competition — the Phoenix Suns, Washington Wizards, Cleveland Cavaliers and red-hot Atlanta Hawks — over the next week and a half. If Portland's got to go into battle without its All-Star power forward, though, it's awful nice for Blazers fans to know that they've got an All-Star point guard with a nose for the rim and a penchant for late-game punishment to fall back on. - - - - - - - Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YourManDevine Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL , "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
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