Red-hot Kings visit Trail Blazers (Dec 28, 2016)

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Sacramento Kings come to Moda Center on Wednesday night flying off the fumes of a season-high four-game winning streak.

The streak began Dec. 20 at Golden 1 Center with a 126-121 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, their opponent Wednesday night -- and a team going in the opposite direction.

Portland (13-20) lost six straight and 10 of its last 11 games, falling to 10th place in the Western Conference -- two games behind eighth-place Sacramento (14-17).

The Kings are coming off Monday's 102-100 home victory over Philadelphia in which center DeMarcus Cousins scored 30 points and grabbed seven rebounds. But it was his block of a potential game-winning 3-pointer by Joel Embiid in the closing seconds that caught the attention of Coach Dave Joerger.

"He is locked in, doing a great job defensively, and talking about where guys should be and helping each other from the back line," Joerger told reporters. "He has been absolutely fantastic. He is playing at an incredibly high level."

Cousins welcomed back one teammate, small forward Rudy Gay, against the 76ers. Gay, returning from a six-game absence with a strained right hip flexor, scored nine of his 17 points in the fourth quarter.

"Rudy had a good stretch," Joerger said. "(Gay and Cousins) are good teammates. They're conscientious. They look for each other. When the other is not on the floor, sometimes they pin their ears back and get aggressive.

"Rudy was able to do that in the fourth quarter. He was aggressive and put us on his shoulder there for a couple of minutes, and DeMarcus did the same thing, which is just terrific."

There are ebbs and flows through a long NBA regular season, Joerger said.

"Two weeks ago, where were we?" he asked rhetorically. "That's why you don't get too low, and I don't (get upset) over four losses in a row. I don't think we're going to win the championship yet. We're just going to keep building."

Pause. "We might win a championship," he said, smiling.

Portland may be without its best player, point guard Damian Lillard, who missed his first game of the season in Monday night's 95-91 loss to Toronto at Moda Center. Lillard is dealing with a sprained left ankle.

The Blazers' defense was better against the most efficient offense in the league. The Raptors (22-8) shot a season-low 33.7 from the field and scored 16.4 points below their season average, yet still were able to pull out the win.

"It was a really good effort by our guys," Portland coach Terry Stotts said. "It might have been our best defensive game of the season, and against an excellent offensive team. We played with lots of energy. As much as we hate to lose games, you appreciate hard work."

A year ago, the Blazers rallied from a 13-20 start to finish the regular season 44-38. Last year's turnaround gives hope that it could happen again, but nobody is banking on it.

"Any day it could turn around, but this is not last year," forward Moe Harkless said. "Things could continue to go south. Last year, we had faith we'd be able to turn it around. We knew we could be a better team. We feel the same way this year, but that's not enough. We can't act like everything's OK."