LaMarcus Aldridge scored 24 points, Andre Miller added 15 and the Portland Trail Blazers held on to beat the Orlando Magic, who were without the suspended Dwight Howard, 89-85 on Monday night.
Portland won its third straight, and 10th in 13 games. The Blazers also swept the two-game season series with Orlando.
Marcus Camby was held scoreless, but had 10 rebounds to help the Blazers fend off a late rally by the Magic.
Orlando lost its second consecutive game and dropped to 1-2 this season without Howard, who sat out while serving a one-game suspension after picking up his 16th technical foul Friday.
Jason Richardson led Orlando with 22 points, followed by 13 apiece from Ryan Anderson and Hedo Turkoglu.
Richardson's 3-pointer tied it at 74 with 9:34 to play. A 3 by Anderson two possessions later then gave the Magic their first lead since the opening minutes, 77-76.
The pace quickened from there and following a pair of ties and lead changes, the Blazers regained the lead 81-79 on a tip-in by Gerald Wallace with 6:26 left.
The Magic kept it within a basket before Portland's Wesley Matthews drained a 3-pointer from the corner to push to 88-83. Orlando then lost a basket by Anderson after an official review during a timeout waved it off because of a shot-clock violation. That made the deficit 88-81 with just 2:47 remaining.
The Magic kept punching.
Turkoglu hit another from beyond the arc cut it 89-85 at the 1:21 mark and Portland turned it over on a shot-clock violation of its own with 56.3 seconds to play.
Orlando forced a stop, but the Magic got up only one more field-goal attempt.
The Blazers opened the second half with a 13-4 run to take a 60-47 advantage with 5:53 left in the third. It grew to as many as 14 (64-50) before a 14-1 run by the Magic trimmed it to 65-64 at the 1:29 mark. Arenas had eight points during the run, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Portland led 47-43 at halftime, but neither team was particularly impressive offensively in the opening 24 minutes.
Howard's absence underneath was felt early for the Magic, who missed 10 of their first 15 shots — mostly outside jumpers — and racked up 12 first-half turnovers.
The Blazers weren't much better, shooting just 43 percent. They only turned the ball over five times, though, and held an 18-16 scoring advantage in the paint.
Orlando also had no answers defensively for Aldridge, whose 11 points led all scorers. Miller chipped in 10.
The Magic didn't get any of their nine players that saw action in the half into double figures, but were paced by Redick's eight points off the bench.
Notes: Howard missed his third game this season and only his sixth regular-season game in seven NBA seasons (550 of a possible 556 games). ... Howard has been fined $50,000 this season for his 16 technical fouls. ... Retired LPGA golfer Annika Sorenstam and actor Kevin James were among the announced crowd of 19,001.
source: Yahoo News
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