Both the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers entered Wednesday's game barely 24 hours removed from a loss. Only one of them, though, showed the inevitable ill-effects of taking the floor for the second time in as many nights. A thoroughly depleted roster didn't help Portland, either.

The fatigued and overmatched Blazers fell to the Mavericks 132-112 at Moda Center, playing from behind after an ugly first quarter on both sides of the ball left them trailing 41-25. They showed some fight before halftime, sparked by palpable energy from CJ Elleby and Trendon Watford that carried into the first few minutes of the third quarter. But once the Mavericks started raining 3s, Portland couldn't keep up.

“We fought really hard to get back in it,” Chauncey Billups said after the game, “and just didn't have enough to get over the hump.”

Damian Lillard, Larry Nance Jr. and Cody Zeller remained sidelined against Dallas, with Nassir Little and Robert Covington joining them in wake of minor injuries suffered during Portland's last-second defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday. Their absence, unsurprisingly, was most keenly felt on defense, where Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson abused the Blazers from the opening tip in ball-screen situations. Dallas shot 54.5% from the field and racked up 35 assists on Wednesday, en route to a 133.5 offensive rating.

“That definitely hurt,” Norman Powell said of Portland missing Little and Covington. “Nas provides a lot of energy for us, then RoCo with deflections, his hands, being a communicator on that backline.”

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Anfernee Simons rebounded from a rough performance versus Minnesota, leading Portland with 23 points and seven assists on 9-of-14 shooting. CJ McCollum put up an efficient 20 points, four rebounds and six assists, while Jusuf Nurkic added 18 points and eight rebounds, breaking a career-long streak of six straight double-doubles. Powell needed 17 shots to score 19 points, insisting after the game his shooting struggles were the result of some remaining rust after just returning from an eight-game absence on Tuesday.

“We played well enough to win last night,” McCollum said. “I don't think we played well enough to win tonight.”

A win over the surging Mavericks without arguably their three most viable defenders of Doncic was always asking too much of the Blazers, even at home. Playing on the second leg of a back-to-back only made that task closer to impossible. At least Portland can take some solace from another encouraging offensive performance while Lillard sits. Dallas boasts the league's fifth-best defense, and stingiest in January.

The Blazers' winless home stand moves them to 20-28 on the season overall, six and a half games behind the Denver Nuggets to avoid the play-in tournament.