SEATTLE – The Seattle SuperSonics did their part on Friday night, easing in front of the Portland Trail Blazers in the second half and holding on for a spirited 89-87 victory before a noisy sellout gathering of 17,072 at KeyArena.

Unfortunately, the San Antonio Spurs failed to beat the surging Denver Nuggets, which means the Sonics will have to wait another few days to clinch the inaugural Northwest Division championship.

On that note, Seattle’s players and coaches were delighted to savor another accomplishment of note – a 50-win season.

“It’s a great milestone in the NBA,” said Sonics guard Ray Allen, who led his team with 19 points. “To win 50 is a great achievement and I’m definitely very proud of this whole team. … A lot of these guys in this locker room don’t understand what winning 50 games means, but you might not ever do it again.”

“It’s great,” agreed Seattle coach Nate McMillan. “This team has worked hard all season long and they’ve played the game the right way. They’ve played together. To get their 50th win tonight in unbelievable fashion without two key guys (Rashard Lewis and Vlade Radmanovic, both injured), guys had to step up and play. It was a gutty win.”

Seattle, which is 50-22 with 10 games to play, came into the game with a magic number of two to clinch the division title, meaning any combination of Seattle wins or Denver losses totaling two and the Sonics could pop some champagne. The magic number for the Sonics to finish ahead of Denver was three, but Seattle has the tiebreaker over the Nuggets even if the two teams finish knotted in the final season standings and if they split the season series (they play once more in Denver next Saturday).

“Whenever we can (clinch), that’ll be great,” McMillan said. “But we’re not going to wait on Denver. We’ll just continue to play and try to make that happen ourselves. The focus is on us and what we need to do.”

After a lackluster first half – Portland shot .537 from the field and led by as many as 12 points – the Sonics finally got untracked after the intermission. After trailing 50-46 at halftime, Seattle opened the third quarter with a 15-3 scoring burst and led most of the rest of the way, though the Blazers made it interesting at the end.

Erasing a nine-point Sonics lead in the last eight minutes, Portland went ahead 83-82 on a pair of free throws by Shareef Abdur-Rahim with 2:22 to play. Undaunted, Seattle promptly got the lead back and held it to the final horn, though the visitors had a chance to tie in the closing seconds.

After a timeout, Portland tried to spread the floor to isolate Abdur-Rahim on Seattle’s Nick Collison. The strategy failed as Collison kept Abdur-Rahim away from the basket, and his off-balance jumper from near the free-throw line kicked off the rim and was gathered by the Sonics as time expired.

The Blazers “play hard every time we play them,” Allen said. “They were scrapping, and we let our guard down at certain points of the game and they got back into it. This was a very tough game to play because they want to beat us.”

The game marked the return of forward Danny Fortson, who had missed eight of Seattle’s previous nine games with a sprained ankle and as punishment for refusing to go into a March 25 game against New York. Fortson, who entered the game late in the first quarter and received a noisy ovation, played 16 minutes and managed two points and six rebounds, decent contributions from someone who has played just 39 minutes in the last three weeks.

Before the game, McMillan said he expected to return Fortson to his usual spot in the rotation. That means Vitaly Potapenko, who had played well during many of the games Fortson missed, will return to his former place near the end of the bench.

“Danny came back focused,” McMillan said. “He gives us that toughness and that scrappy play.”

The game was interrupted early in the third quarter by a squabble involving Allen and Joel Przybilla, Portland’s 7-foot-1 center. Przybilla threw his arm out as Allen tried to get around a screen, knocking the Seattle player to the floor. Allen immediately confronted Przybilla, though other players quickly interceded. Allen and Przybilla drew technical fouls, as did Seattle’s Damien Wilkins, who had initially been a peacemaker.

Portland was without three players due to injuries or illness. Former Sonic Ruben Patterson stayed home with the flu, while Derek Anderson and Theo Ratliff both have back spasms, giving Portland just nine healthy players.

Ahead for Seattle is a two-game road trip to California. The Sonics will practice at home today, then fly to the Bay Area for a Sunday afternoon game at Golden State and a Tuesday night game in Sacramento.

Seattle needs two wins in its last six road games to set a franchise record for road wins in a single season. The Sonics, 25-10 away from KeyArena this season, won 26 road games four times in the 1990s, most recently in the 1997-98 season.