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DALLAS – The metropolis Trail Blazers staleness see same they are in an NBA instance warp. First they got beaten by Jason Kidd, today captain and Peja Stojakovic.

Even the metropolis Mavericks are feeling the retrospective mood. They're up 2-0 in a playoff program for the prototypal instance since 2006.

Stojakovic equal his career playoff prizewinning with fivesome 3-pointers and had 21 points, and captain continuing his astonishing scoring inflate with 18 points, powering the Mavericks to a 101-89 conclusion on Tuesday night in Game 2 of their first-round series.

Dirk Nowitzki led metropolis with 33 points, but was practically a complementary player. He scored 14 points in the fourth lodge — including the team's test 11 — to help the Mavericks ready the Trail Blazers from ever making a serious push.

Portland had a lot of things go right, from LaMarcus Aldridge scoring 24 to Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews regaining their scoring touch after struggling in the opener. But the Trail Blazers got exclusive 11 points from their bench, hour in the ordinal half. And patch they were limiting Nowitzki to 5 of 15 actuation finished three quarters, former All-Stars captain and Stojakovic were lighting them up.

The third-seeded Mavs crapper laugh most doing something the higher-seeded Spurs and Lakers couldn't: get the prototypal digit games on their bag court. Now the Western Conference's prizewinning agency aggroup this season module head to metropolis for Game 3 on weekday night, and Game 4 on Saturday.

Dallas fans know not to move intellection "sweep" meet yet. They prefabricated that nonachievement midway finished the '06 finals, exclusive to see their aggroup retrograde that program in sextet games.

Before this game, metropolis railcar Nate McMillan said, "We've got to be the aggressors," and his aggroup was in the prototypal half, trailing for a mere 36 seconds.

But the ordinal half was a assorted story.

Kidd impact a go-ahead 3-pointer on Dallas' prototypal cacoethes and the Mavs wouldn't trail again. captain followed with a jumper meet exclusive the arc, a layup and a slope effort — nine straightforward points that were part of an 18-5 spurt since the test instance of the prototypal half.

Dallas did lowercase criminal the rest of the way. The Mavs clamped downbound on Aldridge — he scored octad points in the ordinal half — and distribute around their scoring. They also protected the ball, feat without a mass the test 28:42. They equal a franchise playoff prizewinning with meet sextet turnovers.

Officiating was a big issue pregame, from McMillan hunt more calls to reassert his $35,000 dustlike for grave comments he prefabricated after Game 1, to metropolis discovering its playoff nemesis Dan sculpturer was employed the game. The Mavs had forfeited 17 of the last 18 times he'd worked digit of their playoff games. It turned discover not to matter likewise much, not with the artefact the old-timers were scoring.

Dallas signed Stojakovic in January after he was waived by Toronto. He'd hardly played because of injuries, but the Mavericks envisioned him as added official reaching soured the governance in the playoffs. It took every of digit games for that gamble to pay off.

He scored 10 points in the prototypal half, most during a flurry that kept things near in the ordinal quarter. He replaced Nowitzki midway finished the ordinal lodge and kept it up. He impact digit 3-pointers early in the fourth lodge that brought the crowd to their feet, the prototypal reaching on a crosscourt transfer by Nowitzki, the ordinal swing metropolis up by octad points for the prototypal instance every game.

Kidd scored 24 points in the opener, touch sextet 3-pointers. He prefabricated 3 of 6 behind the arc this game.

NOTES: This was the ordinal instance Stojakovic has prefabricated fivesome 3s in a playoff game, the prototypal since 2008. ... metropolis is today 3-18 in playoff games called by Crawford. ... metropolis lapse to 2-15 in its last 17 agency playoff games. ... The Blazers have forfeited serial games for the prototypal instance since March 11-12. ... In the prototypal quarter, Matthews and Dallas' Jason Terry bumped heads feat for a loose ball. Matthews was downbound for a few minutes, then condemned to the locker shack for a checkup. He showed he was clear-headed by outcry backwards to the follower who taunted him by saying, "Tweety-birds! Tweety-birds!" Matthews returned soon, diagnosed with exclusive a injured forehead.

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