Despite the ’ recent struggles, it was hard to imagine a way for them to lose heading into Monday night’s matchup at the Detroit Pistons, one of the worst teams in the NBA missing several key players. To make that theory hold, inflicted early damage on the way to a triple-double, dominated the second half and the Blazers held on for a 110-104 victory at Little Caesars Arena. The game did became a bit precarious late. The Blazers led by 17 points in the fourth quarter, but the Pistons cut the deficit to 105-99 with 1:39 remaining on a three-point play from rookie Jaden Ivey. Grant responded with a three-pointer to push the Blazers lead to 108-99 with 1:19 left, and the Blazers held on from there. Lillard persevered through a cold-shooting night to record a triple-double, finishing with 31 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists. He made 10 of 28 shots, including 6 of 14 threes. “He came out and set the tone for us,” Blazers coach told reporters while talking about Lillard. “He usually does. We just kind of exploited the coverage that they were in. And then they did a good job of actually changing the coverage and putting a lot more pressure on him. We had to find other guys and I thought Jerami came out and was very aggressive, as well. ” Lillard scored 16 points in the first quarter and entered the halftime locker room with 21 after making 5 of 8 threes. But then Lillard went cold, making just 1 of 5 shots in the third. That’s when Grant took over, scoring 17 third-quarter points, and he finished with 26 of 9-of-19 shooting. The Blazers shot 48. 7% from the field, including 45. 5% from three-point range (15 of 33). Trendon Watford came off the bench to score 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting. The Pistons played without several key players, including Bojan Bogdanovic, Isaiah Steward, Killian Hayes and Jalen Duren. That left the already ineffective Pistons even more depleted. But they managed to hang tough with the Blazers by scoring 56 points in the paint and outscoring the Blazers 34-27 in bench points. Isaiah Livers scored 17 points, Ivey finished with 13 points and 12 assists and Joe Wiseman added 12 points for the Pistons, who made just 10 of 32 threes. The Blazers (31-34), coming off of Sunday’s victory at Orlando, have won consecutive games for the first time since Feb. 3 and did so on a road back-to-back. The win moved the Blazers into a three-way tie for 10th place in the Western Conference with Utah (31-34) and the Los Angeles Lakers (31-34). However, it shouldn’t be ignored that the Blazers last three victories have come against the Pistons (15-49), Magic (27-38) and the Houston Rockets (15-49), teams chasing the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA draft lottery. Portland’s last victory over a team that currently has a winning record came Feb. 8 against Golden State (34-31). Of the Blazers’ final 17 games, 11 come against teams with winning records, a stretch that starts Wednesday night at Boston (45-20). The Blazers visit the Celtics Wednesday at 4:30 p. m. -- Aaron Fentress | | (Twitter), (Instagram), (Facebook). Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive and.