Things couldn’t have gone much better for the Mavericks than the first three quarters of Game 4 on Saturday. They also couldn’t have been much worse than the fourth.

The Mavs led by 23 points, 67-44, before a 5-0 Trail Blazers run in the final 35 seconds of the third cut their lead to 18. But the Blazers didn’t stop there, chopping the lead all the way down to nothing in the fourth and taking their only lead of the second half on the game’s final basket. Portland outscored Dallas 35-15 in the final frame.

The result was an 84-82 loss for the Mavericks, knotting the series at two games apiece as it heads back to Dallas for Game 5 on Monday night. After the Game 4 loss, the Mavs locker room was in a state of aftershock as Jason Kidd tried to make sense of what had just happened:

"That’s basketball — you go on runs, and they went on a big run."

He would go on to call it one of the toughest losses he’s ever been a part of.


Jason fires off a pass around LaMarcus Aldridge during Game 4 on Saturday night (Getty Images).

Jason got off to a blistering start in Game 4, and it looked as though he was going to put together a big night of scoring yet again. He drained his first triple at the five-minute mark of the opening frame, which made the score 11-9 Mavs. Dallas would not trail again for the next 40 minutes.

The trey keyed an 11-4 run that carried over into the second period and gave the Mavs a 22-13 lead with eight minutes to go in the first half. Portland answered with six-straight free throws, but Jason once again righted the Dallas ship by doing what he does best—finding teammates for easy buckets.

First the hall-of-fame point guard found Dirk Nowitzki from outside the left elbow for an easy two. On the next Dallas possession, No. 2 took matters into his own hands and sank a three-pointer from straightaway center.

After snagging the rebound on the Trail Blazers’ ensuing empty offensive trip, Jason made a quick pass to center Tyson Chandler, who finished with a layup. Over a stretch of just over a minute, Jason had played a pivotal role in extending the Mavs’ lead to 10 points, 33-23. But that’s when No. 2 drew his third foul. And when J-Kidd sat, the offense ground to a halt, as Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas noted:

"The Mavs had a golden opportunity to take a nice lead into halftime up 33-23 with 5:09 to go, but the Dallas offense bottomed out after Jason Kidd picked up his third foul. Portland will be happy to trail 37-35 at the half.

Kidd has six points and has drained both of his 3-point attempts, but foul trouble has limited him to just 11 minutes."

J-Kidd picked up his fourth foul at the 10-minute mark of the third quarter, but remained in the game and promptly buried his third trey, again from the top of the arc. The three gave his team an 11-point cushion, 48-37.

From there the Mavs continued to pile on the points while playing suffocating defense. Over a four-minute, 30-second stretch late in the third, the Mavs put together a 17-0 run to take a commanding 64-41 lead. At that point, they had limited Portland to just 14 points during the period. But the Blazers closed the quarter on a 5-0 run to pull within 18.

In the fourth, the Mavs’ offense went cold. Portland outscored Dallas 18-0 in the paint and shot 75 percent from the field during the final quarter to slowly chip away at the deficit. With three-and-a-half minutes remaining, they had pulled to within 10, 80-70, and Dallas would score just two more points in the game.

Portland took its first lead since the first quarter when Brandon Roy, who scored 22 second half points, sank a pull-up bank shot with 39.2 seconds left.

"We’ve got to execute our game plan," Jason said of the fourth quarter turnaround by Portland. "It’s not just taking the ball out of

[Roy’s] hands. They’ve got guys that can put the ball in the basket. So, you can fall in the trap of trying to focus all your attention on one guy and the other guys beat you. So, we’ve got to go out and execute our game plan, put the pressure on them and be aggressive."

Jason still gave his team a chance to pull out the victory when, with three seconds left and the Mavs trailing by just two, the point guard pulled down a rebound and immediately hit Jason Terry on a long outlet pass. Terry let fly the game winner, a 26-footer from the right wing, but the shot didn’t go.

"Oh, man, I thought I was going to make that one," Terry said. "No question. It just didn’t go."

J-Kidd finished with nine points, all from beyond the arc where he made three of his five attempts. But his final attempt, a shot at the lead with 29.9 to go, would not fall.

"We had two good looks there at the end," he said. "I think I rushed my shot and there were two seconds left and had Jet with the ball, but it should never have came down to that."

No. 2 added five rebounds, four assists and two steals in the loss.

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There’s always an understandable disappointment in a loss such as Saturday’s, but coach Rick Carlisle said that it’s up to the Mavs to remain focused:

"We’ve been through tough losses before. It’s not easy, but for us, we gotta get back on the plane, get back home, study some of the things that went wrong . . . It’s dissapointing and everything, but the NBA season has a lot of highs and lows, and we gotta keep going."

Rob Mahoney of The Two Man Game backed that stance in his postgame analysis:

"Many Mavs fans are understandably shaken following the team’s incredible second half letdown on Saturday, but the series is only beginning; at two wins apiece, Dallas and Portland have only shortened the contest after resetting the balance. There are more opportunities still, and two more games to be played in the comfort of American Airlines Center.

It may be hard to find optimism in such dire times as these, but those still pulling for Dallas should embrace the self-contained nature of each playoff game. There’s a natural momentum and course to the series as a whole, but as long as the Mavs can clear their heads and prepare adequately, there’s no reason why any of Game 4’s maladies should linger into Game 5 or beyond."

J-Kidd meanwhile emphasized that the Mavs chances of winning the series are still strong, as long as the team stays focused on the task at hand and has a short memory.

"We have to stay together and get home and come out Monday with the same focus and intensity as we did today," he said. "Then we just have to finish."

Tip-off for Monday’s Game 5 at the American Airlines Center is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised locally on KTXA and nationally on NBA TV.

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