The Blazers will look for their fourth straight victory at the Rose Garden on Thursday, when they welcome Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks for the last of the NBA's five Christmas Day games.

Portland's Dec. 25 game against Seattle last season was supposed to be a matchup of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, the first two players selected in the 2007 NBA draft, but Oden missed the entire season following microfracture knee surgery.

Still, the Blazers' 89-79 victory was the 11th in a string of 13 straight for Portland. Although the team struggled in February and March and finished 10th in a competitive Western Conference, it's off to another strong start this season.

The Blazers (18-11) have lost five of nine, but they're coming off a 101-92 win over Denver on Tuesday, as LaMarcus Aldridge scored 22 points, Brandon Roy added 12 of his 19 in the fourth quarter and Joel Przybilla scored 10 and had 19 rebounds off the bench.

Przybilla got big minutes in place of Oden, who was held scoreless and hasn't yet turned out to be what Portland was hoping for when it snagged him with the No. 1 overall draft pick. In the last three games, Oden has started but averaged just 6.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in less than 16 minutes while dealing with foul trouble.

"Greg has to play through it, and learn to play and learn the rules as far as what the officials are calling on him and make an adjustment," Blazers coach Nate McMillan said.

Despite Oden's struggles, the Blazers are emerging behind Roy, the star guard who is averaging a career-high 22.7 points. Roy scored a career-high 52 points in a 124-119 home win over Phoenix last Thursday, Portland's other recent victory over a perennial West playoff team.

"What we are working on, and what we've got to do, is make that transition being able to play with Phoenix, the Nuggets, we've got Dallas coming up," McMillan said. "All of these games are going to require the same type of basketball - very physical, you've got to be focused, we've got to be the aggressors."

That hasn't been a problem for the Blazers at home, where they're off to a 10-2 start after going 28-13 last season - including their only two victories over the Mavericks in the teams' last 17 meetings.

Dallas (16-11) got off to a tough start this season, but has won 14 of its last 18 to surge back into contention for a ninth straight playoff berth. Nowitzki has led the charge, averaging 27.8 points and 10.1 rebounds over that span while hitting on 91.1 percent (113-of-124) of his free throws.

Nowitzki led the team with 21 points in a 100-82 win over Memphis on Tuesday, as the Mavs cruised to victory even though they matched a season low with 42 first-half points.

Instead, they held down the Grizzlies, who shot 38.3 percent from the field as O.J. Mayo scored just seven points - only the second time in 28 games the rookie has failed to reach double digits.

"With the lineups we've been starting, we have to be good defensively because we don't have a dynamic offensive team from one to five out there," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "We've really got to be good defensively and get our offense predominantly off stops."

Lately, Carlisle has been starting veteran Devean George along with center Erick Dampier and point guard Jason Kidd, leaving Nowitzki and Josh Howard as the only true scorers in the lineup.