Trail Blazers Top Nets, Advance to Play-In

The Portland Trail Blazers live to fight another day.

Facing the end of their season with a loss, they held up under the pressure and beat the Brooklyn Nets 134-133 behind the stellar play of Damian Lillard, who had 42 points.

CJ McCollum chipped in 25 big points. McCollum, dealing with a fractured vertebrae, bounced back in a major way from his 2-14 performance against Dallas.

The surprise of the night may have been Hassan Whiteside. Relegated to the bench with Jusuf Nurkic’s return, Whiteside erupted when Nurkic was stuck on the bench in foul trouble for the middle periods, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds.

The Trail Blazers now move on to the play-in series against the Memphis Grizzlies. By finishing the seeding games as the eight seed, the Trail Blazers need to win one game against Memphis to advance and face LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. Memphis would need to win both games to advance.