Dallas ? Layups, jumpers, three-pointers; Dirk Nowitzki was hitting them all.

Yet the Dallas Mavericks still trailed by 13.

Nowitzki never lost his touch, however, and when his teammates found theirs the Mavericks pulled away from Portland for a 96-86 victory Saturday night in the opener of their first-round series.

Nowitzki scored a career-best 46 points, the most ever by a Maverick in the playoffs and four shy of the overall team record. He made his first six shots and had 23 points in each half. He also had 10 rebounds.

Most importantly, he scored 10 points during a 15-1 spurt in the third quarter that changed the entire game. The key hoop was a three-pointer while falling down that put Dallas ahead for good and drew a roar from a crowd of 20,336 — the largest in team history.

“I was trying to be aggressive, that was my major thing — to get to the basket and the free-throw line,” said Nowitzki, who finished 16-of-27, going 4-of-5 on three-pointers and making 10 of 11 free throws.

“We have a lot of weapons out there. Tonight, I was just the one with the hot hand.”

Michael Finley, just getting over a hamstring problem, went from missing his first six shots to making his next five and finished with 13 points and seven rebounds. He closed the third quarter with a buzzer-beating jumper then opened the fourth with a three-pointer that put the Mavs up by nine.

Steve Nash, the third member of the Big Three that led Dallas to a franchise-record 60 wins, had 10 points and nine assists.

But afterward, the talk was all about Nowitzki.

“I told him at the end of regulation that he will eventually be one of the best all-around players to ever play the game,” Dallas coach Don Nelson said. “He will eventually be able to do the things that Larry Bird did. That’s my vision of him.”

Portland’s collapse began when Rasheed Wallace went to the locker room because of an injury with 7:23 left in the third.

He was gone less than four minutes, but the Blazers were never the same again as their playoff losing streak hit eight. They haven’t won a postseason game since Game 6 of the 2000 conference finals.

They’ll try again in Game 2 Wednesday night.

“We had a great opportunity to put that team on their heels, and we didn’t,” said Portland’s Scottie Pippen, who had five points, five rebounds, four assists and a team-worst four turnovers in 32 minutes. He also wore a sleeve over his left leg to protect a recent knee injury.

Wallace finished with a team-best 26 points and seven rebounds. He shot 11-of-22 and made three of the Blazers’ five three-pointers.

Reserve Damon Stoudamire had 16 points and Bonzi Wells had 16 points and 10 rebounds.