Trail Blazers Roll to Fifth in a Row

Bonzi Wells scored 16 points and Rasheed Wallace grabbed a career-high 18 rebounds Monday night as the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Charlotte Hornets, 89-67, at Portland, Ore.

Wells started for the second consecutive game in place of Steve Smith, who is recovering from the flu, and added seven rebounds. Wallace and Damon Stoudamire each scored 12 points as the Trail Blazers won their season-best fifth consecutive game.

Jamal Mashburn and David Wesley each scored 12 points for Charlotte, which made only 33% of its shots and managed only 12 points in each of the first and third quarters.

After Charlotte scored the first six points of the second half, Portland put the game away in the third quarter. Stoudamire hit a jumper with 9:28 to play, and Wells added a pair of layups to put Portland up, 54-43.

Wallace added a dunk and Wells made two free throws as the Trail Blazers held the Hornets to only 12 points in the third quarter and went into the fourth with a 67-49 lead.

Minnesota 106, Houston 96--Kevin Garnett scored 21 points and Terrell Brandon had 12 of his 19 in the fourth quarter for the Timberwolves at Minneapolis.

“I’m used to sleeping at 2:30 in the afternoon, so it was tough to come out here on New Year’s Day and play,” Brandon said. “We were a little more consistent in the second half and showed that we weren’t sleepwalking.”

The Rockets lost for the sixth consecutive time to the Timberwolves despite getting 30 points from Cuttino Mobley, who had a career-high 33 on Oct. 31, when the teams met in the season opener.

“He’s a great player,” Minnesota guard Chauncey Billups said of Mobley. “If you can get to the basket and make your shot like he does, you can do that in this league. But it doesn’t matter if he gets 160 if we win the game.”