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Blazers Overcome Slow Start, Incorrect Calls To Defeat Mavericks In Dallas

DALLAS -- The Portland Trail Blazers gave up 40 points in the first quarter and trailed by as many as 19 points in the first half Sunday night in Dallas.

And yet, they came away with the win anyway.

It would require epic performances from their starting backcourt, a huge first quarter from Rodney Hood and a successful coach's challenge late in the fourth quarter, but in the end, the Trail Blazers came away with a 121-119 victory versus the Dallas Mavericks in front of a sellout crowd of 19,707 Sunday night at American Airlines Center.

"That was a helluva game," said Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. "A lot of ebbs and flows, a lot of runs by both teams. It's probably only fitting that it came down to a last-second three. I was proud of how we competed to get back into the game, I was disappointed with our defense in the first half. But second half, we stayed locked in for most of the half and it was a gutty win."

The Trail Blazers are now 2-1 through three games this season and are 2-0 on the road. After starting the year 2-0, Sunday's loss is Dallas' first of the season.

In a game that was typified by each team going on extended runs in the first three quarters rather than trading baskets, the Mavericks jumped all over the Trail Blazers early on in Sunday night's contest. With Dallas starting the game by going 7-of-9 from the field and 2-of-3 from three, Portland found themselves down double digits before four minutes had elapsed in the first quarter.

But as would be the case all night, the Trail Blazers answered back. After calling a timeout down 17-7, Portland scored the next eight points to get back into the contest and would eventually go on an 18-8 run to tie the game at 25-25 with 3:19 to play in the first quarter.

But that would be the last time the Trail Blazers would score in the first quarter, which allowed a 15-0 Mavericks run, resulting in a 40-25 deficit going into the second quarter. Had it not been for Rodney Hood going 5-of-6 from the field and 3-of-3 from three for 14 first-quarter points, the hole the road team found themselves in after 12 minutes would have been far deeper.

Tthe Mavericks took their largest lead of the game at 46-27 early in the second quarter, after which the Trail Blazers started the daunting process of chipping away at a nearly 20-point lead. After Hood kept Portland in the game in the first quarter, CJ McCollum picked up the mantle in the second, scoring 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from there field and 6-of-6 shooting from the free throw line in the quarter.

With McCollum's heroics, along with the team shooting 63 percent from the field and 50 percent from three in the quarter, the Blazers were able to carve a sliver out of the Mavericks' lead to head into there locker room down 71-59 at the half.

"We've got to do a better job in the first half," said McCollum. "It's been happening every game, open threes, breakdowns on defense. So we've got to tighten up, communicate better."

In the third, it was Damian Lillard's turn to shoulder the offensive load. But while the 6-3 guard out of Weber State was scoring 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field in the third, Portland's defense also stiffened up, something which had not happened in the first two quarters. Between Lillard's outburst and the Blazers holding the Mavericks to 26 percent shooting from the field and 27 percent shooting from three, Portland tied the game at 95-95 going into the fourth quarter.

Despite the Mavericks holding double digits leads in each of the first three quarters, neither team was able to pull away in the fourth. Portland took their first lead of the game on a Kent Bazemore three with 11:07 to play, and the lead would change 10 times thereafter.

The Trail Blazers took their largest lead of the game after a Lillard layup gave them a 107-101 lead but the Mavericks scored six-straight in under a minute to tie the game at 107-107, and from there, neither team would go up by more than two.

Games that come down to the wire are often decided in large part by who gets the calls late, and such was the case Sunday in Dallas, though with a new twist. Lillard was called for a foul on Dorian Finney-Smith with 8.4 seconds to play. But after seeing the replay, in which it looked as though Lillard slapped the ball away cleanly, and briefly conferring with his point guard, Stotts used his coach's challenge to protest the foul call. On review, the call was overturned, resulting in a jump ball.

“Damian put me over the top," said Stotts, who is on record as not being much of a proponent of the new challenge rules. "If we lose the challenge, they are on the line and we are down one, but he was pretty adamant, so I trusted him."

Mavs center Kristaps Porzingis won the jump ball, but it was Bazemore who managed to track down the loose ball. He was fouled by Tim Hardaway Jr. and went 1-of-2 from the line to give the Trail Blazers a 121-119 lead with 3.0 seconds to play. With no timeouts, the Mavericks had to advance the ball all the way down the court, resulting in Hardaway Jr. having to launch a desperation 31-footer that was well off and Portland's second win of the season.

“We showed some character and some resilience," said Lillard. "There was two or three times where they could have put us away, in the first half and the second half. Each time, coach called great timeouts and we came to the bench and regrouped each time. We came out of it with a run of our own. We couldn’t get over the hump in the first three quarters and then we went through a stretch where it was back and forth. But I think our wings did a great job of defending, just being active. They came up big on the defensive end. Everybody just chipped in in any little way they could for us to finally get ourselves over the hump.”

McCollum led all scorers with 35 points on 12-of-26 shooting from the field to go with six rebounds, four assists and two steals in 41 minutes. Lillard finished with 28 points, five assists, three rebounds, a steal and a block in 38 minutes.

Hood went 8-of-12 for 20 points while also logging six rebounds, two steals and a block in 31 minutes. Kent Bazemore contributed 11 points and five rebounds off the bench.

While the win goes down as one of Portland's most gutsy in the last few seasons, it didn't come without a significant cost, as starting forward Zach Collins suffered a dislocated left shoulder fighting for a rebound in the third quarter of Sunday's win. Collins will undergo and MRI on Monday and will not play versus the Spurs.

"(Doncic) jumped up and just jumped back, and my arm was still over his shoulder, and it went back the other way," said Collins. "They said it popped back in so cleanly that it’s really a good sign. I thought it was going to be painful.”

Next up, the Trail Blazers head to San Antonio to face the Spurs in the second game of a back--to-back, Portland's first this season. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.