Mavs Fall to 2-1 after 121-119 loss to Portland

DALLAS - Heading into Sunday night's matchup with the Portland Trailblazers, the Dallas Mavericks were one of just seven undefeated teams remaining in the NBA. Unfortunately for Dallas, and despite all-star level performances from their two stars, Dallas would drop their first game of the regular season in a 121-119 home loss.

"Look, we scored 119 points. Problems for us were mostly defensive," Rick Carlisle said after the game. "We had a pretty good turnover night. 12 is a manageable number, even for 16 points in a high-scoring game like this. We gave up, I don’t know how many layups, and points in the paint – 46. Too many. We were only in there for 34 [points] ourselves. We have got to do better with our interior defense. They have two great players out there that can really break it down, long-range, mid-range, and to the rim. We didn’t do a good enough job. This is a game that came down to one stop, one score, and one jump.”

Unsurprisingly, the Blazers were led by their star guard tandem of C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard, who combined for 63 points, with McCollum's 35-point, 50-percent shooting night leading all scorers in the game.

The pair helped Portland clear a 16-point first-half deficit and march back to take their first lead of the game with 11:07 to go in the fourth quarter.

With the Mavs trailing by one with only seconds remaining, things ultimately came down to a controversial call in which the Trailblazers challenged a foul call that would have sent Dorian Finney-Smith to the line. The ruling of the foul was then reversed, resulting in a jump ball that the Mavericks then lost, and giving the Blazers the upper hand.

“It was just interesting," Kristaps Porzingis said about the challenge." After their coach’s challenge, we had that jump ball. That was the first time that I’ve been in that situation, so that was kind of interesting. But yeah, those are going to happen, especially at the end of the game. Coaches are going save that for a crucial call, and hopefully, get it overturned – so it is what it is.”

NBA Referee Courtney Kirkland, who was involved in the controversial call, explained the ruling to Mavs.com reporter Dwain Price after the game, giving a full rundown of the situation.

“Once Portland challenged the play and we were able to go and look at replay, we were able to have clear, conclusive evidence that Damian Lillard legally deflected the ball from Dorian Finney-Smith," Kirkland told Dwain Price. "Once the ball was legally deflected, the ball was loose when the whistle blew, which led to an inadvertent whistle. Therefore, we ended up having a jump ball at center circle between any two players.”

For the Mavs, Doncic, who nearly added his 10th career triple-double, finished the game with 29 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists while hitting 8-22 from the floor and just 2-11 from three.

Doncic's new star running mate, Kristaps Porzingis, also dropped a stellar offensive performance in the win, adding 32 points, nine rebounds, and five assists on 11-23 shooting. Though he was only 3-10 from beyond the arc, Porzingis found a way to be effective in other ways, being aggressive at the rim, and hitting 7-10 attempts from the foul line.

Seth Curry also played a key role down the stretch, scoring 12 points in 24 minutes off of the bench, while Maxi Kleber added 14 points and six rebounds in his third consecutive start.

Despite the solid offensive numbers though, it seems free throw shooting was their Achilles heel once again.

“Free throws – you’ve gotta make those," Porzingis said. "There isn’t really anything else to say about that, that could’ve been the game. There are so many things, thinking back in my mind, that we could’ve been better at. We have so much more room to grow as a group. I think we’re on the right path. We just want to keep going.”

Following the loss, the Mavs will now hit the road for what will be easily their toughest game of the season on Tuesday when they travel to Denver to take on Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets at 8 pm from the Pepsi Center.

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