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It was no masterpiece, but a road win is a road win, and the Trail Blazers are now 3 and 2 on their 6-game journey through the East, Midwest, and Mid-south, their longest trip of the season. They followed up their win in Toronto Sunday, with an 81-79 victory over the 76’ers in Philadelphia. They’ve now beaten the Pistons, Raptors, and Sixers on this trip, and have fallen to the Bucks and Pacers.

"Let’s get out of here before they change their mind," Nate McMillan said as he hurried on to the team bus after the game. He was smiling, possibly for the first time all night, and clearly wasn’t thrilled with the way the game played out, but was happy to get another w on this trip.

It looked as if the Blazers were going to cruise to an easy victory over Philadelphia in the second quarter, as they took a 16-point lead, and were cruising, behind a great effort from the bench. But, just like in the Indiana game, where they took a double-digit second-quarter lead, it evaporated in the third quarter. The Sixers outscored the Blazers 24-14 in that quarter, and led by as many as 7 in the fourth quarter.

The Sixers still had a 5-point lead with 2:23 left in the game, but Portland rallied to take a 3-point lead with 30 seconds left. The Sixers then took a timeout, and Maurice Cheeks diagramed a play that would give them an open look at a three-pointer. It didn’t exactly work as planned, but it worked. Chris Webber, who was just 1 for 4 from behind the three-point line on the season coming into this game, drilled a 3, and the Blazers got a shot to win it with 13 seconds left.

As they did in the closing seconds at Detroit and Milwaukee, the Trail Blazers got the ball to Zach Randolph on the left side of the floor, and let him go to work. Even though we all knew where Zach was going, Alan Henderson apparently didn’t. Randolph went to his strong hand, his left hand, and simply shot by Henderson after a quick head fake, and scored the game winner with just 2.4 seconds left. Philadelphia, without a time out remaining, had to settle for a desperation heave from midcourt.

Zach, who didn’t play on Sunday in Toronto, had 18 points and 10 rebounds, but didn’t become involved in the game until the fourth quarter, where he scored 11 of his 18. Henderson, who hadn’t played at all until the fourth quarter, played the final 10 minutes of the game. Shot blockers Samuel Dalembert and Steven Hunter, who had done a nice job on Randolph throughout the game, were left on the bench, and Randolph didn’t mind that.

Turnovers were a huge problem again for the Blazers in this game. They turned it over 20 times in Toronto on Sunday, and had 23 against the Sixers. So, to come out of a back-to-back situation, on the road, with 43 combined turnovers, and shooting 43 percent, the Blazers are 2 and 0. That’s fairly amazing.

A solid game was turned in off the bench from Juan Dixon, who had 17 points on 6 of 13 shooting. And, Ime Udoka continued his strong trip, scoring 12 points and grabbing 5 rebounds. Udoka did suffer a possible concussion during the game, when he and Philly’s Kyle Korver banged heads in the second half. Ime took the blow under his right eye, while Korver got it on top of the head. Ime didn’t show signs of being injured immediately after the play, but said he "blacked out" a couple of times on the Blazers bench in the second half, and Dan Dickau told me Ime was mumbling and not making much sense (I told him I go through that with Mike Rice all the time). I interviewed Udoka on TV after the game, and didn’t see any sign of a concussion, but as a precaution, he didn’t fly with us to Memphis after the game. He stayed in Philly with strength coach Bobby Medina, and will be evaluated today.

The Blazers will practice on Tuesday, and will take on the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night. It’s another good opportunity for the Blazers to get a win on this trip. And, if you remember, the Blazers had just 6 road wins total, last season. They’ve got 5 already this year- more than they have at home, by the way.