The Dallas Mavericks beat the Portland Trail Blazers 93-82 on Monday to gain a 3-2 advantage in their first round series. Game 6 will be in Portland on Thursday night. The big story in this game was Tyson Chandler and his 13 (!) offensive rebounds. Chandler and his 20 total rebounds nearly single-handily gave the Mavs a pretty sizable rebounding advantage. Our Mavericks blog Mavs Money Ball has reaction from Chandler.
"I really just want to do whatever it takes to win at whatever time. In that last game, I was as in as much shock as everybody else. I vowed to myself that I wouldn't let it happen again. Coming out tonight I knew my team would need me because after such a bad loss, a lot of times it can roll over into the next night and I didn't want to go back to Portland behind the 8-ball."
When Chandler can play as well as he did on Monday, and win his matchup with Marcus Camby, he provides a pretty big advantage for the Mavs. He allows the rest of the team to play their game, because they know that they have a force to cleanup the glass. Here is Dirk Nowitzki on Chandler's impact:
"Tyson was phenomenal on both ends of the floor with his energy. He was all over the boards. He was trying to make Aldridge work for everything and protected our paint. I always said if Haywood and Chandler play big for us in the paint, we can play and beat anybody."
These two teams have played nine times this season (regular season included) and the home team has won each contest. The Mavericks will have to be the first team to reverse that trend if they want to avoid a Game 7 back in Dallas over the Weekend.