Jusuf Nurkic, Anfernee Simons and the new-look Portland Trail Blazers have definitely earned a week-long vacation.

Portland will embark on the All-Star break as perhaps the hottest team in basketball, winners of four straight games after taking down the Memphis Grizzlies in a hard-fought, highly entertaining 123-119 victory on Wednesday at FedEx Forum.

Memphis entered having taken nine of its last 10 games, continuing to stake a forceful claim as legitimate contenders in the Western Conference with a string of convincing wins. But the revamped Blazers came out with the same palpable energy and intensity that has highlighted their stunning success since the trade deadline, jumping out to an early lead before making enough plays late to get perhaps their best all-around win of the season.

“People still try to overlook us,” Nurkic said after the game. “I think we're playing hard, that's no doubt. Making shots obviously helps. But we play the right way and it gives us a chance to win.”

The Bosnian Beast was dominant again on Wednesday, out-hulking Steven Adams down low en route to 32 points, eight rebounds and four assists on 12-of-17 shooting. His right-block score over Adams with 1:42 left put Portland up one, then he broke a tie on the next trip down by drawing a foul fighting for an offensive board, hitting each subsequent free throw.

“He was unstoppable tonight,” Chauncey Billups said of Nurkic. “Not many times he goes up against guys as big as he is, and he just had his way with their team.”

Simons put the Grizzlies away for good on the Blazers' following possession, dancing with the ball before draining a pull-up three over Tyus Jones. His 31-point, six-assist night marked his fourth straight game with at least 30 points, and this one came on 11-of-18 shooting and 5-of-10 from beyond the arc.

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Josh Hart continued ticking all the boxes for his new team, finishing with 22 points, seven rebounds and six assists. Facing the franchise that declined his team option after 2020-21, Justise Winslow came out inspired, setting an early tone for Portland on both ends and helping limit Morant after he proved impossible to keep off the rim in the first quarter. Ben McLemore added 14 points off the bench, his shooting ability stretching Memphis' active defense away from the ball.

The win moves the Blazers to 25-34, suddenly one-and-a-half games up on the New Orleans Pelicans for the final spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.

Obviously, Portland didn't plan on playing its best basketball in immediate wake of the deadline. Both Billups and interim general manager Joe Cronin publicly admitted the team's trio of trades sacrificed the present for the future. Cronin even came close to confirming that Damian Lillard's season was over. Remember, Portland only keeps its first-round pick come July if it falls inside the lottery.

Negative big-picture implications of the Blazers' success aren't worth distress for now, though. There's still plenty of time to lose after the All-Star break, and Portland has finally begun cementing the identity Billups envisioned when he was named head coach last summer.

“I'm just happy for our dudes, man,” he said. “Things that we've been preaching all year, how we wanna play as a staff, we're just doing it, we're just doing it. And we're doing it together. It's incredible what you can do when you do it together, and have everybody on one accord.”