Mavericks vs Blazers Preview, Injury Report, and Game Thread: Dallas plays Portland, again!

For the fourth time in five weeks, Mavs play the Blazers

The Dallas Mavericks (21-16) host the Portland Trailblazers (13-23) on Thursday night.
Due to inclement weather, the game is getting moved up an hour and will start at 6:30 pm CST as opposed to the usual 7:30 pm for Dallas home games. It will be the fourth and final game of the season series for the two teams, with Dallas winning the first two and the Blazers winning the most recent. Here’s the main things you need to know tonight:

• WHO: Dallas Mavericks vs Portland Trailblazers
• WHAT: Building off the win over the Lakers
• WHERE: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
• WHEN: 6:30 p.m. CST
• HOW: Channel 29, and Playback with Kirk, Matthew, and David

On the injury front, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and Dante Exum are all out. Daniel Gafford is listed as questionable after missing the Los Angeles Lakers game Tuesday following an ankle sprain against the Memphis Grizzlies. For the Blazers, Jerami Grant is missing the game. Matisse Thybulle is also missing the game with an ankle issue.

After beating the Lakers Tuesday this would be a massive win for Dallas. They’re five games over .500 and the West is a mish-mash of ugly in the middle of the conference. The Mavericks need to notch wins like this if they still have designs of both the playoffs and home court. This should be a fun, weird game after Dallas lost to the Blazers by a huge margin last week.

As you can tell below, you can join me and some other Mavs Moneyball guys in a room on Playback (embedded below) during the game (though I may not be able to start it until halftime). Also, consider joining Josh and I on Pod Maverick live after the game on YouTube, we should start around 9:30 pm. Thanks so much for spending time with us here at Mavs Moneyball. Let’s go Mavs!