Mavs Win 50
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DALLAS — Entering the regular-season finale Wednesday night at American Airlines Center, the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers were locked into their postseason seeds. The Mavericks emerged with a 114-98 win, and by the end of the night both teams learned the identity of their first-round playoff opponents.
The Pacific Division champion and fourth-seeded Blazers (51-31) will be matched up against the fifth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies (55-27). Portland, however, won’t have the home-court edge due to the Grizzlies’ better record.
“I thought we had a very good regular season,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “We had a good 82-game season. We’ve accomplished a lot in the regular season, and now it’s time to move on.”
The No. 7 Mavericks (50-32) will open at No. 2 Houston (56-26) after the Rockets beat Utah and the San Antonio Spurs lost at New Orleans. The Rockets, led by guard James Harden, an MVP candidate, and center Dwight Howard, won the season series 3-1.
“Now it is 0-0 for everybody, and the first team to 16 wins,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “We have been watching this thing very closely. We have a lot of information on a lot of people, but it’s
going to Houston and they are great team that has had a great year.
“They have two of the greatest players in the game with Howard and Harden. They have a terrific supporting cast, and they are well-coached. We are going to have to play our butts off to beat them.”
Although nothing was truly at stake in what otherwise was a glorified scrimmage, the Mavericks were vocal about winning a milestone 50th game. Dallas has won at least 50 games 12 times since 2001, but it hadn’t reached that mark since 2010-11.
“We came in locked in from the start,” center Tyson Chandler said after scoring 22 points and grabbing 15 rebounds for his 31st double-double this season. “We wanted to get the 50th win for this franchise. We’ve had a lot of success over the years, and we wanted that to continue. Also, we wanted to go in healthy and on a good note going into the playoffs.”
Health was on the minds of both the Blazers and Mavericks. Portland came into game No. 82 with various levels of uncertainty surrounding power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, center Chris Kaman, forward Nicolas Batum, guard CJ McCollum and guard Arron Afflalo.
Aldridge was the only one to suit up from that group, scoring 19 points and grabbing eight rebounds after missing two games with a foot sprain. The others hope to get back for Game 1 in Memphis.
“We struggled offensively early, but I thought we kept competing,” Stotts said. “Obviously, we’re undermanned, but I thought everybody out there played hard and competed.”
Portland point guard Damian Lillard had 17 points and two assists in 29 minutes. Reserve guard Tim Frazier had 13 points and 10 assists.
The Mavericks were without starting small forward Chandler Parsons and reserve guard Devin Harris. Otherwise, Carlisle went with a normal rotation in the finale.
Power forward Dirk Nowitzki scored 16, shooting guard Monta Ellis added 15 points, and backup center Amar’e Stoudemire had 13 points.
The Mavericks were up 56-51 at halftime behind 17 points and 10 rebounds from Chandler. Dallas went on a 10-0 run to open the second half and soon had the lead up to 20.
Portland ended the regular season on a four-game losing streak.
