Wizards 83, Trail Blazers 79

03/12/2010 21:13:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -On a night that top draft pick John Wall struggled in his return to the starting lineup, the Washington Wizards turned in their best defensive performance of the season and beat Portland 83-79 Friday, the Trail Blazers´ sixth consecutive loss.The Wizards held Portland to 10 points in the third quarter and a season-worst 33.3 shooting percentage to win despite getting only 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting and a career-low two assists from Wall. Gilbert Arenas picked up some of the slack, with 15 points and six assists in a reserve role.Brandon Roy led the way with 18 points for Portland, which went through a fourth-quarter drought of more than 6 1/2 minutes without a field goal until LaMarcus Aldridge´s tip-in with less than 1 1/2 minutes remaining in the game.Aldridge finished with 16 points and 15 rebounds, but he shot only 6 for 17. Roy shot 9 for 21, while Andre Miller´s 12 points came mostly from the foul line, because he was 2 for 12 on field goals.Washington´s Andray Blatche had 19 points and nine rebounds, while JaVale McGee added 13 points and 10 rebounds.In their previous game, the Wizards allowed a season-high 127 points in a loss at Toronto, an effort coach Flip Saunders called ``embarrassing´´ and ``just very disappointing.´´But while the Wizards are 0-9 on the road this season, they improved to 6-3 at home. They also snapped a four-game losing streak overall.Washington used a 13-2 run, propelled in part by Arenas, to go up 55-54 with a little under 1 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter.Arenas replaced Wall with four minutes left in the quarter and immediately made a 20-foot, pull-up jumper, then a fastbreak layup. After Kirk Hinrich made a 3-pointer, Arenas found his fellow guard up the left wing to start a breakaway that ended with Blatche´s two-handed jam for Washington´s first lead since the game´s opening minutes, and the hosts were ahead 57-56 entering the fourth quarter.Making his first start in more than a week, Wall was rusty. He missed two games with a bruised right knee, then played against Toronto on Wednesday but did not start.Arenas, meanwhile, started Washington´s previous nine games but entered this one midway through the first quarter - although he didn´t show up on the sideline until about 2 1/2 minutes into the game. Arenas immediately stopped an 11-0 run by Portland by making a 19-foot jumper, then assisted on an alley-oop dunk by McGee, followed by a fastbreak dunk by Blatche.When Arenas checked in, Wall sat, having shot 0 for 4 with zero assists until then.Wall later returned, and the guards played together, but the rookie´s first-quarter stats looked like this: 0 for 5, zero points, zero assists, three turnovers. His first field goal came more than five minutes into the second quarter, on a fastbreak layup. His first assist came nearly four minutes into the second half, on McGee´s dunk.The Blazers didn´t score a point in the third quarter until about 20 seconds later, on a dunk by Aldridge.Led by Roy´s 10 points, the Trail Blazers led 46-34 at halftime. Wall was 1 for 6 from the field and had six points but no assists and four turnovers.NOTES: Portland has its longest losing skid since dropping eight in a row at the end of the 2005-06 season. ... Miller was the only Portland player to attempt a free throw until the fourth quarter. ... The first 10,000 fans in the announced crowd of 13,408 received a Wall bobblehead. ... Portland C Joel Przybilla played for the first time since rupturing his right patella Dec. 22, 2009. He entered in the final minute of the first quarter and wound up with four points and seven rebounds in 20 minutes. ... Wizards swingman Nick Young was inactive because of a bruised left thigh. Wearing a brown leather jacket, he strolled out to sit on the sideline about 2 1/2 minutes after the game began - moments before Arenas arrived. ... Wizards C Yi Jianlian played after missing nine games with a right knee injury, while another backup, Hilton Armstrong, returned to action after serving a one-game suspension for shoving Miami´s Joel Anthony in the third quarter of Monday´s 105-94 loss at the Heat.