Energized Blazers beat Mavericks, 126-122

Score two entertaining games in a row for the Portland Trail Blazers, who took an early lead and defeated the Dallas Mavericks 126-122 on Saturday night. These weren’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 to suspension following an incident with former Blazer Jusuf Nurkic in Phoenix. Nonetheless, the well-rested Blazers came out strong and never gave these Mavs a real chance to win despite a late comeback attempt that failed.

With tonight’s win, the Blazers are back over .333! So let’s celebrate the little victories and get involved.

Blazer of the Night: Many Blazers played well, but Scoot deserves this award. What a great two game stretch for Henderson. In the very next game, after scoring the winning goal against the Utah Jazz, Henderson once again excelled on offense, leading the team off the bench. He scored 19 points, with 6 assists, 5 steals and 4 rebounds in 29 minutes.

But actually every single starter deserves an honorable mention because they all played an important role in the victory. The team looked rested and relaxed despite the absence of Toumani Camara and outperformed the Mavs, who regularly stumbled over themselves.

Stat of the night: The rebound advantage that leads to fast breaks. The Blazers outrebounded Dallas on both offense (14-10) and defense (36-30), which led to fast breaks (24-12) and second-chance opportunities. Portland took full advantage of the fact that Dallas was missing its big men.

What we’ll remember: Greg Oden’s return and on-air commentary. In his first appearance in Portland in over a decade, a visibly excited Oden answered questions from the media and talked about how nice it was to return to the place where he started his career. Then Portland’s former number 1 didn’t hold back in the comments and openly and with blunt honesty analyzed the Blazers’ play on the court. It has been many years since the days of Steve “Snapper” Jones; Modern commentary teams often act as an arm of the marketing department. Fans clearly found Oden’s comments refreshing from the status quo and expressed this online.

Box score

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