From PlaymakerOnline.com

Dirk Nowitzki was the 4th quarter hero of the Dallas Mavericks 89-81 victory in game 1 of their series against the Portland Trailblazers, but the man who carried Dallas in those first three quarters and delivered the dagger late in the 4th quarter was Jason Kidd.

The Portland Trailblazers did an excellent job of frustrating Nowitzki and denying him the ball through the first three quarters. Dirk hit a few shots in the first quarter, but he had to work for everything. He only had 10 points going into the 4th quarter, turned the ball over six times and didn’t get to the free throw line. But by working so hard to deny Nowitzki, guys like Kidd, Jason Terry and JJ Barea were able to get into the paint and create an offensive flow without Dirk touching the ball. Kidd was the biggest benefactor. He made three three-pointers in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter and into the 4th quarter, the offense became stagnant. The Trailblazers starting throwing up alley-oops and getting everything they wanted in the paint. That success, in turn, fueled their perimeter game and the Blazers were rolling. But Jason Kidd poured in eight of the 14 points that Dallas scored in that quarter to keep the Mavs in the game.

In the 4th quarter, Nowitzki finally got going and carried Dallas to a win with 16 4th quarter points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI_zP...layer_embedded

Nowitzki started attacking and taking advantage of Portland sending him to the free throw line and overplaying him at the top of the key. Dirk made some nice backdoor cuts and the shots that weren’t falling in the 2nd and 3rd quarters started going down.

Appropriately though, the man that put the final nail in the coffin was Kidd who hit a cold-blooded three-pointer with 25 seconds left to put Dallas up by seven.

LaMarcus Aldridge played a great game, scoring 27 points on 12-20 shooting. Marcus Camby helped Portland own the paint with 18 rebounds. The key to the Dallas defense was that they didn’t double team Aldridge. While that left them vulnerable to his game with the ball in the low block and a barrage of alley-oops, it made Portland one-dimensional. The Trailblazers scored an intimidating 46 points in the paint. When you consider that they made nine free throws and only two of their 16 three-point attempts, that means that Portland only made 12 jumpers in the game.

That’s pretty solid perimeter defense, but it’s going to be tough for Dallas to win like that again. It also accentuates how important home court advantage is in this game. Portland was never able to sustain a run because those alley-oop slams didn’t feed the perimeter or three-point shooting. You’d expect that to happen when the series shifts to Portland.

But for now, all that matters is that Dallas is up 1-0 in a series everyone picked them to lose and they can take control by holding home court advantage and put all the pressure back on the Trailblazers with another win on Tuesday night. And after both the Lakers and Spurs lost on Sunday, that seems like a really good position to be in for Game 2 at home.