It's too soon to call them road warriors, but the Portland Trail Blazers have found traveling to be a little more pleasant of late.

The Northwest Division-leading Trail Blazers lost at Boston Wednesday night, but are 6-3 in their last nine games away from the Rose Garden. The Trail Blazers started the season 0-9 on the road.

The Celtics pushed their NBA-best record to 31-6 with the 100-90 win over Portland. The Trail Blazers (23-15) fell behind in the third quarter, and couldn't recover with Boston's Ray Allen shooting his way to a season-high 35 points.

"I don't think we believed we could beat them," said guard Brandon Roy, who led Portland with 22 points. "We've been playing to win lately, but (Wednesday) I think we just came in to give them a good game. The next time we play them we have to believe that we can actually beat them."

Portland has won 18 of its last 21 games, but has lost two of the first three games on its season-high seven-game road trip. The Trail Blazers fell in double-overtime Sunday 116-109 to Toronto, but rebounded to blow out New Jersey the next day. The team finishes its trip with a Southern swing through Miami, Orlando, Atlanta and New Orleans.

"This shows we have work to do," coach Nate McMillan said after the Celtics game.

The work will probably include doing a better job of scoring down low.

Center Joel Przybilla averages 4.9 points and doesn't have much of an offensive game. Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge averages almost 18 points per game, but his scoring pace has been dropping in the last month.

McMillan thinks the falloff can be partly attributed to Aldridge relying too heavily on the outside shot. McMillan wants him to spend more time in the paint.

The Trail Blazers' resurgence has coincided with an improvement in scoring and field-goal percentage, and they've developed an identity as a jump-shooting team.

Portland is averaging 97.1 points a game, up from 94.1 last year, and is shooting 46.1 percent from the field, up from 45.0 percent.

OUTLAW STAYS GROUNDED: Travis Outlaw often entertains his teammates with eye-popping slam dunks in practice and in games, but the fifth-year Portland forward has no interest in showing them off All-Star Weekend.

Outlaw told OregonLive.com: "I'm just not that type of dunker."

The 6-foot-9 Outlaw said his fear of dunk contests dates to high school, when he missed every jam in the McDonald's All-America dunk contest.

McROBERTS STARTS SLOW: Forward Josh McRoberts went scoreless in 30 minutes for the NBA Development League's Idaho Stampede in the Stampede's win over Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday.

McRoberts, rookie from Duke, hasn't made much of an impact in three games since being sent down last week. The 6-foot-10 forward, a second-round draft pick, is averaging 6.3 points and 4.7 rebounds in 26 minutes per game in Idaho. He is shooting 31.6 percent from the field.

McRoberts has played just seven minutes this season for the Trail Blazers.

Portland rookie guard Taurean Green averaged 19.3 points, 9.8 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists in a four-game stretch with the Stampede last month.