The Portland Trail Blazers play host to the Minnesota Timberwolves at Moda Center on Sunday.

The Timberwolves (11-15) come into this matchup amid a five-game losing streak, getting embarrassed by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday in their most recent game. That was a wire-to-wire win for Cleveland, leading by at least 15 points for the final 35 minutes. Performances like that have fans wondering if this club has taken the next step because it looked like that when they were above .500 before this recent slide. The five-game losing streak does correlate with D'Angelo Russell getting injured, though, with the young point guard having a bounceback season in Minnesota. Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards are outstanding, but this team isn't the same without their stud point guard.

The Trail Blazers (11-15) are free-falling down the standings, struggling without Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Those two guards have been running this team for quite some time now, and it's becoming evident how bad they are without them in this current four-game losing streak. It's actually eight losses in their last nine games in total, falling out of the playoff picture altogether. The losing has led to plenty of trade rumors as well, with McCollum and Lillard being the main pieces. Management did come out and say that Lillard won't be traded, but there's a lot of talk about how this team is trying to acquire Ben Simmons. He would add a whole new dynamic to this club, and it's becoming clear that they need to make a move to spice things up.

Portland has dominated this series over recent years, winning eight of their last 11 games over Minnesota. That's been the case historically, too, with the Trail Blazers owning an 87-36 record against them.