The Portland Trail Blazers had a special March and Terry Stotts has been recognized for it.

The NBA on Monday named Stotts the Western Conference Coach of the Month for March, rewarding Portland's coach for guiding his team to a 13-3 record.

It's the fourth time Stotts has earned the honor and first this season. The Blazers had the highest winning percentage in the NBA in March and second most wins while ascending from lottery bound disappointment to the cusp of a playoff berth.

Stotts has earned Western Conference Coach of the Month honors in each of the last four seasons, passing Rick Adelman and Nate McMillan for the most in franchise history. Stotts also earned the honor in November 2013, December 2014 and February 2016. Six Portland coaches have won the coach of the month award: Stotts, Adelman, McMillan, Jack Ramsay, Mike Dunleavy and Mike Schuler.

The Blazers entered March at 24-35, a season-high 11 games below .500, sitting in 10th place, and trailing the Denver Nuggets by two and a half games in the race for the eighth seed. Portland stormed through March, grabbing six road wins including perhaps their most impressive victory of the season, an emphatic 110-106 win at San Antonio on March 15.

Portland's March run also including wins two wins against Oklahoma City and an impressive win at Miami that came at the end of a make-or-break road swing which the Blazers finished at 4-1. The Blazers closed the month in fashion, winning five straight games, earning a crucial victory over the Denver Nuggets to regain control of their playoff destiny followed by a statement win over the Houston Rockets on March 30.

The Blazers had the league's third-ranked offense and the ninth stingiest defense in March, as only the league-leading Golden State Warriors outscored their opponents by more points on a per possession basis. In March, Portland led the league in three-point percentage (41.7) and ranked third in field goal percentage (48.7).

The magic of March was short lived. The Blazers limped into the month following a 2-7 February and limped out of the month missing a crucial part of their turnaround. Portland will have to survive its April slate without center Jusuf Nurkic, who will miss at least the rest of the regular season with a fracture in his right leg.

Nurkic's addition just before the trade deadline in February helped change the Blazers' season and he played every possible minute of March to do so, suffering the injury on March 28 against Denver and still gutting out a 19-point, 11-rebound performance in 31 minutes against Houston in Portland's final game of the month.

But Stotts was quick to point out that while Nurkic was crucial to Portland's recent surge, the Blazers improved collectively to climb back to a .500 and reroute their season towards the playoffs. Damian Lillard has been on a non-stop scoring barrage since the All-Star break, CJ McCollum continues to be one of the league's most efficient high-volume scorers and the rest of Portland's role players have found their stride over the past month.

"Obviously, Jusuf was a part of what we've been doing for the last six weeks," Stotts said Saturday night before the Blazers opened April by stretching their season-best winning streak to six games. "But Damian and CJ have been playing at a very high level. Noah (Vonleh) has gotten better. (Al-)Farouq (Aminu) has been playing well. Moe (Harkless) just came off a really good game. Allen Crabbe's been great. Not one guy has to do more, but I think we are playing well and we just do it as a team."

Stotts edged out Golden State's Steve Kerr, San Antonio's Gregg Popovich, New Orleans' Alvin Gentry and Utah's Quin Snyder for March's award.

Jason Kidd, who led the Milwaukee Bucks to the best record in the Eastern Conference (14-4) in March, and handed Portland one its three losses during the month, was named Eastern Conference Coach of the Month.

-- Mike Richman

mrichman@oregonian.com

@mikegrich