The Dallas Mavericks (21-18) are in Portland Friday night to take on the Portland Trailblazers (24-16). This is the first game of back-to-back games in Portland.

The Mavericks will be looking to build off a big home win on Wednesday night against the Clippers.

Portland will be on the second night of a back-to-back after their win Thursday night against the Pelicans.

Portland and Dallas matched up against each other on February 14th in a game that saw Portland win by three.

Damian Lillard vs. Dallas

Damian Lillard torches everybody in the league. For the season, he’s averaging 30.6 points per game and had 36 on Thursday night against New Orleans.

In his last 13 games against Dallas, he has scored at least 28 and at least 30 in eight of his last nine games against Dallas.

In February, Lillard had 34 points (12-26 from the field, 5-11 from 4) and hit a clutch 3-pointer that essentially iced the game. 

It figures that Josh Richardson will be given the task of defending Dame on Friday night without Dorian Finney-Smith. I would also expect a lot of double teams thrown at Lillard to try to make the others on the team beat you.

What this means for the standings

Portland currently sits at the 6th spot in the West. The 6th seed guarantees you a spot in the playoffs without having to fight it out in a play-in scenario. With Portland already 1-0 against Dallas this season, these two games will determine the tiebreaker between these two teams.

For Dallas, they have already clinched tie breakers against Denver and the Clippers.