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PORTLAND, Ore. -- LaMarcus Aldridge returned to the Trail Blazers lineup, happy to know that things didnt go awry without him. Portlands All-Star forward had 16 points and the Blazers won their fifth straight game with a 102-96 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night. Aldridge was averaging 23.9 points and 11.4 rebounds before a left groin injury caused him to miss five games. "Im not going to call guys out but I thought that they just played great," Aldridge said about the team in his absence. "I thought everybody did more, whether it was rebounding or whatever. Everybody just played better." The win moved the Blazers (41-18) a season-high 23-games over .500. After failing to make the playoffs last season, Portland sits in third place in the Western Conference. Robin Lopez led the Blazers in scoring for the first time this season with 18 points, while Nicolas Batum had a career-high 16 rebounds. "That was a solid win for us," said Blazers coach Terry Stotts. "We did a lot of good things. I felt like we were in control for the most part." Kenneth Faried, Randy Foye and Evan Fournier scored 16 points apiece, but Denver (25-33) lost its fifth straight. Faried, who also had 10 rebounds, took a hard fall with less than two minutes left and appeared to injure his right knee, but finished out the game. Portland won all four meetings this season against Denver, its first sweep of the series since the 1999 season, when the Blazers won all three games against the Nuggets. Damian Lillards driving layup gave Portland a 100-87 lead with 4:09 left in the game and the Nuggets never really challenged. Lillard finished with 17 points. The Blazers had a bit of a rest after a 124-80 rout of Brooklyn on Wednesday night. The Nets played in Denver the next night, routing the Nuggets 112-89. "The effort was there and it was something to build off of because everybody -- the whole city of Denver -- after that loss to Brooklyn had a sour taste in our mouth," Foye said. "We just wanted to get back out there and try to give the fans something to cheer about." The Nuggets have won just one of their last 11 games. Aldridge was greeted with a roar from the crowd at the Moda Center when he was announced as a starter. "It felt good," Aldridge said. "My timing was a little off but it felt good to be back out there playing with the guys." Second-year centre Meyers Leonard also returned after a five-game absence because of a sprained right ankle. But the Blazers did not have forwards Thomas Robinson, who has a left knee injury, and Joel Freeland, with a right knee sprain. The Nuggets were hurting, too. Top scorer Ty Lawson missed his ninth straight game with a left rib fracture. But guard Aaron Brooks, acquired before the trade deadline from Houston, played despite a sore ankle, and Wilson Chandler returned after missing a game because of a right knee sprain. Denver closed within 52-47 late in the half after a pair of free throws from Faried, but Lopezs dunk and Lillards layup helped push Portlands lead to 56-48 at the break. Lopez led all players with 12 points. Lillard, Batum and Leonard had consecutive dunks to give the Blazers an early 22-12 lead. The Blazers stretched the lead to 73-60 in the third quarter on Batums finger-roll layup. Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said he liked the effort after the loss to Brooklyn, but pointed to missed free throws. Denver was 23 of 35 from the line. "You lose the game by six points and you miss 12 free throws, that can be the difference in the game," Shaw said. "I thought the team played a lot better and responded after the embarrassing game we had the other night at home against Brooklyn. So we got better tonight and Im happy with our effort." Notes: Brooks played at the University of Oregon and got warm applause during pregame game introductions. .... Batum becomes the fourth Trail Blazer this season with 16 or more rebounds in a game, joining Aldridge, Lopez and Robinson. ... It was the first time this season that no player for the Blazers or their opponent had a player with at least 20 points. Logan Forsythe Jersey . An unconventional night for Texas-El Paso nearly led to the Miners getting a huge upset. Down by 14 with 2:21 left, the Miners went on a frantic closing spurt that fell just short, and UTEP was beaten by No. Cheap MLB Jerseys .twitter.com/xBTpoAKLJk — Daryl Zerr (@darylzerr) May 29, 2014 @BarDown I give to you the @SquirrelsNCHL aka the Fighting Squirels. http://www.cheapdodgersjerseys.com/.com) - The Calgary Flames are spoilers once again. Matt Kemp Jersey . Coming off a 6-0 drubbing at Chelsea on Saturday, Arsenal endured another demoralizing result after rallying for a 2-1 lead -- only to concede a fluke equalizer. Enrique Hernandez Jersey . The game got off to a less-than-ideal start for the Jets as Oliver Ekman-Larsson found a wide open net from the slot and opened the scoring for the Coyotes a lead in the first period, but Olli Jokinen answered back just over half a minute later.TALLADEGA, Ala. -- A group decision for all of the cars powered by Earnhardt Childress engines to work together at Talladega Superspeedway proved the correct call in NASCARs new knockout qualifying format. Richard Childress Racing drivers and their affiliates swept the first three rows on the starting grid for Sundays race, with the pole going to Brian Scott, who will lead the field to the green flag in just his fifth career Sprint Cup Series start. "Who would have thought that, huh?" Scott asked after Saturdays qualifying session. Cars with ECR engines took six of the 12 spots in the third and final round of knockout qualifying, and they all waited patiently on pit road for someone to make a move. It came with roughly 2 minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the 5-minute session, when all 12 drivers made their way onto the track. Tony Stewart posted the fastest lap as he worked with the other three Stewart-Haas Racing drivers, and as the clock neared the final buzzer, it appeared the three-time NASCAR champion had the pole locked up. Then came the ECR pack of cars, with Ryan Newman leading, Scott somewhere in the middle and Paul Menard bringing up the rear. Team owner Childress had designated Newman as the driver to decide when the pack should go, and Menard was charged with pushing them along. Just as time expired, the entire group shot past Stewarts speed and moved to the top of the leaderboard. It was Scott on the pole, followed by Menard and then AJ Allmendinger, an RCR-affiliated driver. Casey Mears, also an affiliated driver, qualified fourth and was followed by Daytona 500 pole-sitter Austin Dillon and Newman. "It was just a great plan by RCR, getting all the RCR alliance cars working together," Allmendinger said. "We worked on that (in practice) and felt like we all had great speed.ddddddddddddRyan was the guinea pig for all of us and timed it right, and that last session, it was just basically who was going to wait the longest to go out there." It was the first time NASCAR has used its new knockout format on a restrictor-plate track in the Sprint Cup Series. Daytona 500 qualifying in February was done with traditional single-car runs. "The qualifying format, I think there are good tracks for it and bad tracks for it, and this is definitely a great track for it," Menard said. "We had a plan and we tried to stick to the plan as best we could. Ryan, we put the burden on him to decide when to go and where to go, and the rest of us held it in line. ECR top-six and RCR cars all up there is pretty exciting." Now Scott gets to show what hes made of on one of NASCARs fastest tracks. A Nationwide Series regular, hes got three previous starts this season and finished 25th in the Daytona 500. "Ive got that dreaded yellow (rookie) stripe on the bumper, and thats going to make people run away from me like the plague," Scott said of finding drafting partners on Sunday. Stewart wound up 12th in the final session after it appeared he had the pole locked up. SHR put all four of its cars in the final round, and Danica Patrick earned the highest starting spot at seventh. Joey Logano, meanwhile, failed to advance into the final round of qualifying for the first time this season. Hed made it through all three rounds in eight previous sessions. He qualified 16th. "Its not by a good car or not, its just by strategy," Logano said. "We put a lot of work and effort into keeping that streak alive. Its unfortunate." ' ' '