A Familiar Tale: Blazers Fall Behind Early, Lose To Mavs 111-102

The Portland Trail Blazers made it interesting, but yet another fourth quarter rally came up too little, too late as the team fell 111-102 on the road to the Dallas Mavericks.

After trailing by as much as 19 points in the final period, the Blazers fought to within just six on Damian Lillard’s layup with about 90 seconds remaining, but that’s as close as it would get.

Portland (13-11) has now lost three in a row for the second time in two weeks and suddenly finds themselves holding on for dear life to a playoff spot in the West, just one full game ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Box Score

Random thoughts and takeaways:

• Sequels and Remakes. As of late, the script for the Blazers seems to be writing itself like a bad Transformers sequel, but somehow with even less entertaining results. Portland falls behind early, hovers trailing on the wrong side of double-digits for most of the game before a gutsy protagonist finally wills a spirited yet futile comeback attempt that gives you desperate hope that they can still get it right in the next installment. One and a half stars.
• Battle of the Bruisers. Jusuf Nurkic found himself on the losing-er end than usual of the matchup at center tonight against DeAndre Jordan, who stole his lunch money defensively in the post and clearly frustrated the Bosnian big man throughout. Jordan dominated the boards 17-11, which took Nurkic out of his game of knocking heads and gobbling up second chance points.

Up Next

The Blazers will get a couple days off before returning to the Moda Center to host the “surely they can beat this team” Phoenix Suns Thursday night at 7 p.m.