Portland guards Lillard, McCollum held out with injuries

The answer wasn’t exactly pretty – with neither of the Blazers primary playmakers around to disrupt the Atlanta defense, the Hawks stuck its nails onto the perimeter and forced Portland’s rag-tag bunch of role players to make plays to beat them.

The short-handed Blazers found themselves in an unfamiliar position going without Damian Lillard and were dispatched by the Atlanta Hawks 106-97.

Lance Thomas was 9 for 9 and tied his career with 24 points for the Knicks, who had won four in a row.

“It’s been a while since we have been streaking”, Bazemore said. “Dennis just puts (his tooth) in his sock and is ready to go”.

Frazier played nearly wire-to-wire; after a slow start, most of his success came in the second half after the outcome had been mostly decided.

“I did all right”, Frazier said. Lillard said he won’t be out for long, so Frazier is only a short-term solution in very deep leagues. “I thought the competitiveness and the toughness, you could feel it tonight”.

After allowing a more battled-tested team to steal another winnable game away from them, this was the scene in the Blazers’ locker room afterward: All-Star Damian Lillard limped around in noticeable pain with a bout of plantar fasciitis in his left heel.

Lillard’s streak was second in Blazers history to Clifford Robinson’s 461 consecutive games played streak. Lillard and McCollum are Portland’s top two scorers.

NETS 105, BULLS 102: Brook Lopez had 21 points and 12 rebounds, and the Nets stopped a five-game losing streak. Wayne Ellington made three 3-pointers and scored 13 points. Al-Farouq Aminu is grabbing 6.9 rebounds and Mason Plumlee is dishing 2.6 assists. The Blazers fell to 5-13 on the road.

Valanciunas has been sidelined the past 15 games after he sustained a fractured fourth metacarpal in his left (non-shooting) hand during the second quarter on November 20 at the Los Angeles Lakers. However, the Atlanta Hawks were the superior team in terms of ball control, forcing Portland to turn the ball over 19 times to the Hawks’ 10. Atlanta turned it over only twice in the first half.

WIZARDS 113, KINGS 99: John Wall had a career-high 19 assists and also scored 12 points, leading Washington to the victory. “That’s the beauty of this team”.

“Rebounding is a amusing stat”, Stotts said.

Frazier looked his usual crafty and energetic self but struggled early with effectiveness; perhaps coming out a bit overeager for his first meaningful bit of playing time this season. It’s hard to win when you give up that many.

NOTES: Atlanta PG Jeff Teague moved past Bob Pettit into sixth on the Hawks’ all-time assist leader list….

Joe Freeman of the Oregonian noted Lillard will sit against Atlanta, which he noted will be the first missed game of his career, ending a streak of 275 straight starts for Portland.

The Trail Blazers website said Lillard aggravated the injury in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss to Miami. Lillard said he has been playing with a sore foot for a few weeks.

McCollum emerged from Sunday’s game at Miami with sprains to both ankles.

Garnett signed a two-year deal with Minnesota over the summer, but this could have been his last game in Boston.