Dallas Mavs vs. Portland Trail Blazers: Update on Dereck Lively II's Status After Ankle Sprain

The Dallas Mavericks will have to put away the Portland Trail Blazers without their star rookie big man Dereck Lively after an unfortunate ankle injury.

Dalton Trigg | Dec 16, 2023

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Midway though the first quarter of the Dallas Mavericks' matchup with the Portland Trail Blazers, Dereck Lively II, who has been a top-five rookie this season, had to leave the game after tweaking his ankle while going for a rebound.

The Mavs announced late in the second quarter that Lively will not return to the game. The 19-year-old big man didn't score in his six minutes of action and hauled in two rebounds.

Dereck Lively II, Dallas Mavericks — Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Even without Lively, superstar Luka Doncic still put on a show, scoring 30 points in a half for the ninth time in his career as the Mavs lead the Blazers 74-63 at halftime.

“Definitely. There are a lot of times where we, early in the season, died on first efforts," Lively said after the Mavs' loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday. "Just seeing as the season goes on, we’ve been able to try to make it more of an emphasis of being able just to be all over, just getting out on defense, being able to get out on shooters, and being able to talk more so no one’s lost out there.”

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Through 22 games, Lively was averaging 9.3 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 26.2 minutes while shooting a league-high 74 percent from deep. Hopefully, for Dallas' sake, he doesn't miss much time with this ankle injury.

Published Dec 16, 2023

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.