[madape]

Good win for the Mavs. Our offense is still struggling. We need better play out of our point guards. I'm not sure that's going to happen this year unless we make a trade.

We're making up for our poor offensive production with defense intensity and rebounding. The guards and swingmen are doing an excellent job of swarming to the ball and creating turnovers. Dirk and Howard are going to be monsters on the board all year long. If we can get production out of Dampier like we saw yesterday, we'll have a chance to get a high seed in the playoffs. I thought Dampier played his first good half of basketball in almost a month. I'm still not convinced he can do it consistently, and I'm still not convinced that even when he plays as good as he can, it will be enough. His presence was huge in the first half and we still were outscored while he was in the game, if I'm not mistaken. I think the offense works much better when he's not clogging up the middle, and I think the defense has looked far better in the zone.

I didn't think Portland came to play.