Energized Blazers beat Mavericks, 126-122

Make it two fun games in a row for the Portland Trail Blazers, who sprinted out to an early lead and beat the Dallas Mavericks 126-122 on Saturday night. This wasn’t the same Mavs that handily beat the Blazers a week ago; Luka Doncic is out with a calf injury and they played late the night before, losing Maji Marshall and PJ Washington in the process to suspension following an incident with former Blazer Jusuf Nurkic in Phoenix. Nevertheless, the well-rested Blazers came out strong and never gave these Mavs a real chance to sneak a win, despite a late comeback attempt that sputtered out.

With the win tonight, the Blazers are back over .333! So let’s celebrate the small victories and dig in.

Blazer of the Night: Lots of Blazers played well, but Scoot got this award. What a great two-game stretch for Henderson. The very next game after hitting the game-winning shot against the Utah Jazz, Henderson again looked good on offense, leading the team off the bench. He scored 19 points with 6 assists, 5 steals and 4 rebounds in 29 minutes.

But really, every single starter deserves an honorable mention here because they all played an important role in the win. The team looked rested and relaxed despite Toumani Camara’s absence, outplaying the Mavs, who tripped over themselves regularly.

Stat of the night: The rebound advantage that leads to fast breaks. The Blazers out-rebounded Dallas on both offense (14-10) and defense (36-30), leading to fast breaks (24-12) as well as second-chance opportunities. Portland took full advantage of Dallas missing their big men.

What we’ll remember: Greg Oden’s return and on-air commentary. In his first Portland appearance in over a decade, a visibly excited Oden took questions from the media and talked about how great it was to return to the site of his professional start. Then, in the comments, Portland’s former #1 pick didn’t hold back and openly dissect the Blazers’ play on the court with blunt honesty. It’s been years since the days of Steve “Snapper” Jones; modern commentary teams often function as an arm of the marketing department. Fans clearly found Oden’s comments refreshingly different from the status quo and expressed it across the internet.

Box Score

What’s next: A date with the Sixers. Philly battled the Utah Jazz tonight and will arrive in town for their only appearance on Monday.