Toumani Camara scored a career-high 25 points and the Portland Trail Blazers spoiled Kevin Durant’s breakout night with a 111-105 home win over the Houston Rockets on Friday night.
Durant recorded 30 points and 12 rebounds and made a 3-pointer with 7:57 left in the third quarter to move into seventh place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
Durant surpassed the legendary Wilt Chamberlain (31,419). His career point total stands at 31,435 after Houston’s second straight loss at Portland.
Shaedon Sharpe had 20 points and eight rebounds while Deni Avdija also scored 20 points for the Trail Blazers, who have won five straight games and seven of their last eight. Caleb Love added 18 points for Portland, which outscored the Rockets 34-15 in the fourth quarter to end a two-game sweep.
Amen Thompson recorded 24 points and nine rebounds and Reed Sheppard added 20 points coming off the bench for Houston. Jabari Smith Jr. added 13 points and eight rebounds.
The Rockets were just 6 of 28 from the field in the final quarter, including 1 of 17 from 3-point range.
The Trail Blazers beat Houston 103-102 on Wednesday.
The Rockets led 90-77 heading into the final period Friday, but Portland came back into the game with an 11-0 run to start the quarter.
Later in the quarter, Avdija scored seven straight points on a 3-point basket and four free throws as Portland took a 102-99 lead with 2:43 left.
A Sidy Cissoko dunk gave Portland a 107-103 lead with 1:03 left. Camara made two free throws to take a six-point advantage with 30.5 seconds remaining and the Trail Blazers completed the victory.
Houston shot 41.7% from the field and made 10 of 44 3-point attempts. The Rockets outscored Portland 56-43, similar to Wednesday, when they held a 57-38 edge at the boards.
The Trail Blazers connected on 41.6 percent of their attempts Friday and were 16 of 44 from behind the arc. Cissoko added 13 points and Donovan Clingan had 15 rebounds.
Durant’s 3-pointer to go past Chamberlain gave Houston a 67-65 advantage and seemed to spark the Rockets.
The score was tied at 72 shortly after when Durant made a 3-point basket to spark a 14-2 burst. Sheppard made two triples during the spurt and Durant hit another to cap it off and make it 86-74 with 2:22 left in the third quarter.
Houston led 29-28 after the first quarter despite Camara hitting all four of his 3-point attempts and scoring 16 points in the period. The Rockets led 56-55 at halftime.
–Field level media
