Dallas Basketball

Mavs Injury Update: Dereck Lively II Helped to Locker Room with Ankle Injury vs. Blazers

Just when things were starting to look up for the Dallas Mavericks on the injury front, rookie starting center Dereck Lively II went down with an ankle injury on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Dalton Trigg

In this story:

The good news for the Dallas Mavericks, who began a seven-game homestand on Wednesday night, is that Kyrie Irving knocked off some rust in his second game back from missing 12 games to a heel contusion. With 2:36 left in the third quarter, Irving had 29 points as the Mavs led the Blazers by 29 points.

Dallas Mavericks / Bally Sports Southwest

The bad news, though, is that just when the Mavs thought things were looking up on the injury front, rookie starting big man Dereck Lively II went down with a nasty-looking ankle sprain in the third quarter. In 19 minutes, Lively had zero points and four rebounds while being a +23 on the night.

The Mavs are officially calling Lively's injury as a sprain and nothing more, but he will not return to tonight's game. In 28 games coming into Wednesday's game, Lively was averaging 9.0 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks while shooting 72.8 percent from the field.

Luka Doncic Passes Rolando Blackman on Mavs' All-Time Rebounding List

Although Luka Doncic and his co-star Irving are healthy and back playing at an elite level together, Lively missing significant time would be a big blow, as the Mavs are just 1-5 in games where the 19-year-old anchor doesn't suit up.

Stay tuned to DallasBasketball.com for extensive postgame coverage following tonight's game against the Blazers and updates on Lively's status in the coming days.

Published
Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

Home/News