• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Mavericks crush Blazers to close regular season

Apr 16, 2015 - 4:03 AM Dallas, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - The Dallas Mavericks never trailed as they closed out the regular season with a 114-98 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.

Tyson Chandler only needed 24 minutes to total 22 points and 15 rebounds for his 31st double-double of the season. Dirk Nowitzki added 16 and Monta Ellis scored 15 to help the playoff-bound Mavericks win 50 games for the 14th time in franchise history.

Dallas will be the seventh seed and will take on the rival Houston Rockets in round-one action beginning this weekend.

"The guys wanted to win 50," said Dallas coach Rick Carlisle. "We had to play and we got that done. Now, it's basically starting from scratch."

The Trail Blazers finished 51-31. Although they won the Northwest Division for the first time since 1999 and were awarded the No. 4 seed, they will not have home-court advantage against the Memphis Grizzlies, who finished with a better record.

"We had a very good regular season," said Portland coach Terry Stotts. "We accomplished a lot in the regular season, and now it's time to move on."

LaMarcus Aldridge led Portland with 19 points and Damian Lillard netted 17. Tim Frazier had 13 points and 10 assists off the bench for the first double- double of his career.

Dallas effectively put the game away in the opening minutes of the third. Leading by five coming out of the break, the Mavericks scored the first 15 points to open a 20-point lead. Richard Jefferson hit a pair of 3s in the burst, which finally ended after Allen Crabbe made a layup for Portland nearly four minutes into the period.

Rajon Rondo's layup at 3:43 in the third made it a 22-point game, giving the Mavericks their largest lead of the game. They led 91-72 with one quarter to play and the Trail Blazers never got closer than 13 against Dallas' reserves.

Chandler finished an alley-oop from Rondo early in the game to contribute to an 8-0 Dallas run to put the Mavericks up 12-4. Portland cut its deficit to four, but Dallas then scored the next nine and led 29-19 after one.

After shooting 3-of-12 in the first quarter, Aldridge scored nine points in the second period to help cut into the Mavericks' lead. In the final two minutes of the half, Portland outscored Dallas 7-1 and trailed just 56-51 at the break.

Game Notes

Dallas and Houston have met in the playoffs twice before, with the Mavericks winning in 1988 and 2005 ... Houston won three games out of four in the regular season series ... Portland and Memphis have never met in the postseason ... The Grizzlies swept the four-game season series ... Dallas shot 45.3 percent and made 27-of-34 attempts from the free-throw line ... Dallas outrebounded Portland 54-45 ... Amar'e Stoudemire scored 13 points off the Mavericks' bench.