The Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Los Angeles Clippers, 125-104, at Staples Center on Tuesday.

The hosting Clippers (39-30), who entered Tuesday's contest as winners of five in a row, maintained control of the game for all of the first half and majority of the third quarter before the Trail Blazers (41-26) managed to head into the final period with a one-point edge. Then, a Los Angeles team that was playing the second game of a back-to-back set appear to run out of gas, as Portland dominated the final period, 40-20, and walked away with a key victory with the playoffs not-so-far away.

The Blazers pulled away on the back of C.J. McCollum, who after starting the game 0-of-7 from the field and scoring just five points in the first half, went on to score 30 points over the final 24 minutes for a game-high of 35 points in 35 minutes. He shot an impressive 6-of-11 from behind the arc and 12-of-21 from the field overall. With McCollum's shouldering much of the team's offensive workload, fellow backcourt star Damian Lillard took a backseat, but he still finished with 20 points and 12 assists across 34 minutes. Jusuf Nurkic added 20 points of his own to go along with 12 rebounds in just 25 minutes.

As for the Clippers, Tuesday's defeat ended up being their first home loss since they dropped a game to the Lakers back on Jan. 31, so it was the end of an impressive run. After scoring a total of 74 points over his last two games, Lou Williams failed to bring the same offensive firepower Tuesday night, going just 5-of-16 from the field and scoring 18 points thanks to multiple trips to the free throw line. Montrezl Harrell wound up leading the team in scoring, posting a double-double of 22 points and 11 rebounds off the bench. As a team, Los Angeles shot an efficient 9-of-15 from behind the arc, but they only made to threes in the second half as they watched Portland pull away.