Mavs Don’t Like the Playoff Road

There are two forces of nature working in tonight’s Mavericks/Blazers game. On the one side you have the league statistic which shows that teams that win the first two games of a series go on to win the series about 95% of the time. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Mavs have only won 2 road playoff games going back to the 2006 NBA Finals. Both of those wins were in the 2009 series with the Spurs.
Call me Mr. Vegas but I’m going with the 95% stat in this series. I don’t think the Mavs will win tonight but they will take the series. A big reason is the sudden offense of Jason Kidd. Sensing that he only has another 12 years in the league, I think Kidd wants this badly. His 21 point average is double his regular season number and it’s the same number of games in which he’s scored over 16 points as he had all year. He’s also not giving the ball away…going almost 40 straight minutes without a turnover.
Portland has won 10 of their last 11 home games and are one of the best home teams in the league so winning there will be a challenge. Stopping LaMarcus Aldridge is the biggest challenge. Tyson Chandler finished third in league voting for Defensive Player of the Year but so far Aldridge has owned him, averaging 25 points a game in this series and hitting 55% of his shots.
Jet Terry has yet to take off from deep…amazingly he hasn’t hit a three pointer in the series. That will change tonight. If the Mavs defense can keep the Blazers in the 8o’s, as they have the first two games, they have an excellent chance of moving on. The key will be doing it away from home, instead of being road kill.