Mavericks at Trail Blazers
Damian Lillard aims to follow up a historic performance when the Portland Trail Blazers host the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday. Lillard broke his own franchise records with 61 points and 11 3-pointers - 60 and 10, respectively were the old marks - during Monday's 129-124 overtime win over the visiting Golden State Warriors.
Lillard became the sixth player in NBA history with multiple 60-point games, joining Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain (32 times), Kobe Bryant (six), Michael Jordan (five), Elgin Baylor (four) plus Houston Rockets star James Harden (four). "You kind of run out of adjectives for Damian and his performance," Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts told reporters afterward. "The way he carried the team, not just on the court but in the huddles, timeouts, halftime, his leadership was great. You run out of adjectives, he's an amazing player." Dallas has its own stellar player in guard Luka Doncic and he made a career-best eight 3-pointers while producing 35 points, eight rebounds and seven assists as the Mavericks posted a 120-112 home win over the Trail Blazers last Friday. Doncic, who has 12 triple-doubles this season, narrowly missed one Tuesday with 36 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists but Dallas suffered a 110-107 home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
TIME: 10:30 p.m. ET. TV: TNT, TSN4
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (27-16): Big man Dwight Powell was lost for the season with a ruptured right Achilles tendon after falling to the court untouched during Tuesday's contest and surgical options are being discussed, according to the team. Powell averaged 14.4 points and shot 78.3 percent from the field (47-of-60) over the previous eight games as his role increased due to a knee injury to power forward Kristaps Porzingis, who had just 10 points on 4-of-17 shooting on Tuesday after missing the previous 10 games. "If I played just a little bit better, we would have won the game," Porzingis told the media afterward. "This loss is on me. That's how I feel. I know it's my first game back but I have high expectations for myself and I'm disappointed I wasn't able to shoot the ball better."
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (19-26): While Lillard appreciated his record-setting performance - "I guess if somebody's going to beat my record, it's good to be me," he said - he is not so thrilled about the club being so far below .500 past the midway point of the season. "Anything I'm a part of, I always think it's a chance. It's as simple as that," Lillard told reporters of a possible turnaround. "You show that belief with your actions and your body language and your attitude all the time, so it's not like I was having a good game (Monday night) so everybody believed because I believed." Lillard had 34 points and 10 rebounds in the recent loss to Dallas, a contest in which CJ McCollum (ankle) was injured and the shooting guard could miss his third straight game.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The Mavericks have lost in their last three visits to Portland.
2. Dallas SG Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 29 points and made five 3-pointers in last Friday's win over the Trail Blazers.
3. Portland C Hassan Whiteside recorded 17 points, 21 rebounds and six blocked shots against Golden State and has five 20-rebound efforts this season.