Before Thursday night’s playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy got a text message from Charles Barkley. The text encouraged Roy to keep his “head up, have fun out there and stay positive.”
Roy, who has struggled in the second half of the season after double knee surgery, had lamented about how he was being treated after playing limited minutes in Game 2.
Boosted by his family and dozens of encouraging texts such as Barkley’s, Roy came off the bench and scored 16 points to help the Blazers to a 97-92 victory.
The win narrowed Dallas’ lead in the first-round series to 2-1.
“I was playing tonight. I was in go mode,” Roy said. “I didn’t worry about nothing else. I didn’t worry about playing time, I didn’t worry about who was playing. When it was my time I was going.”
Wesley Matthews had 25 points and LaMarcus Aldridge added 20 for the Blazers, who host the Mavericks in Game 4 on Saturday afternoon.
The Mavs and Blazers split their regular-season series, with each team winning at home twice.
Portland has won 11 of its past 12 at the Rose Garden. Overall against Dallas, the Blazers have a 47-18 advantage at home in the regular season, and they are 7-1 in playoff games.
Reserve Jason Terry had 29 points for the Mavericks, including five 3-pointers. Dirk Nowitzki added 25 points and nine rebounds.
The Blazers led by as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter, but Nowitzki hit consecutive jumpers to make it 87-81 midway through the period.
J.J. Barea’s layup closed the gap to 93-87. Aldridge answered with a jumper for the Blazers, but Nowitzki came back after a free throw with a turnaround jumper to make it 95-90 with 42.8 seconds left.
Jason Kidd made a long jumper with 12.9 seconds to go but Dallas ultimately couldn’t catch Portland.
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