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Sunday, Apr. 16 3:00pm ET
Kings' lead over Sonics cut in half | |||||
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 GAME FLOW
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Rasheed Wallace showed his good, bad and ugly sides Sunday, and still was able to smile at the end of another victory over the Sacramento Kings. Wallace picked up another technical foul before teaming with Bonzi Wells to power a dominant fourth-quarter run as the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Kings for the 11th straight time, 102-95 Sunday. "Rasheed Wallace is a big-time player," said Wells, who had 13 points. "When he establishes himself, nobody can stop him. We just have to do our part and play alongside him." Wallace scored 18 points and Scottie Pippen added 15 points and nine assists for the Blazers, who held the Kings to two field goals -- a dunk by Scot Pollard and a 20-foot jumper by Jason Williams -- in the first 10:39 of the fourth. The Kings slipped into a tie with Seattle for the No. 7 playoff spot in the West. The SuperSonics beat Houston 121-112 on Sunday night. "If we beat the Sonics (Tuesday), we're the seventh seed," Kings coach Rick Adelman said. "They have the same schedule as we have, and it's going to be nice to go against them as if it were a playoff game." The teams entered the fourth quarter tied at 77, and the Blazers took the lead for good on a fastbreak layup by Wells with 10:56 left. Williams' long jumper brought the Kings within two, 83-81, but Wells made a free throw, had another transition layup and blew by Predrag Stojakovic on the baseline to spark a 7-0 burst that made it 88-81 with 7:29 left. Wallace then took over, hitting a 21-foot jumper, a difficult reverse layup and a 23-footer to stretch the lead to 94-84 with 4:12 to go. Wallace was animated throughout the game, even by his standards, complaining about contact from Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and yapping at the officials. Wallace picked up his 38th technical foul of the season, extending his NBA record, when he hollered at referee Michael Smith after fouling Webber with 2:43 left in the second quarter. "They are winning; who cares about a tech?" Webber said. "That's the reason that you've got Rasheed. You draft him from college because he is high-energy, because he's passionate, because he'll cry if you lose. That's a real player." Blazers coach Mike Dunleavy was assessed a technical in the third for screaming at Smith for not calling a foul on Divac for bumping Wallace. "Sheed was doing a good job of working and wasn't getting any calls. He sort of felt like he was being picked on," Pippen said. "So I'm glad Mike sort of took it out of his hands instead of letting Sheed get all rattled about it." After making a short 8-foot jumper with under a minute left and the win secure, Wallace glared at referee Ron Garretson. But Wallace grinned wide in celebrating the victory with his teammates. Webber led the Kings with 21 points and eight assists, Stojakovic had 18 points and Divac had 14 rebounds to go with 11 points. Sacramento had just eight turnovers -- one off its season low -- but committed three in the first minute of the fourth as Portland pulled ahead. The Kings, swept by the Blazers for the second straight season, haven't beaten Portland since Dec. 16, 1997. Sacramento missed its first six shots of the game and trailed 10-2. A 20-foot jumper by Damon Stoudamire with one second left in the opening quarter gave the Blazers a 32-20 lead, but the Kings came back to go ahead late in the second. A 3-pointer by Williams, a nice one-handed putback by Nick Anderson and a fastbreak 3 by Williams cut it to 46-43 with 3:10 left. The Kings took their first lead on an 18-foot fallaway by Webber with 15.6 seconds left for a 50-48 halftime lead. Game notesThe Blazers are 21-7 against playoff-bound Western Conference teams. ... Portland got its 58th victory, tying the 1977-78 team for the third-highest win total in a season in franchise history. The Blazers went 59-23 in 1989-90 and 63-19 in 1990-91. ... Williams had 15 points, six assists and no turnovers _ a much better effort than his last two games against the Blazers in which he shot 2-for-11 and had a combined four points, six assists and eight turnovers. | ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard Sacramento Clubhouse Portland Clubhouse Sonics get lift from Payton's career-high 43
RECAPS Miami 95 Orlando 84
Portland 102
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