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Facing a Nets team without Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant, the Mavericks relied on a team effort to clinch a 115-98 road victory.
To start the game, everything was offensive. Something to be expected considering the Mavs and Nets are strong attacking teams and sit in the bottom third of the league in terms of defensive standings. The Mavs held a 68-64 lead going into the half.
The second half is where things got interesting. For most of the third quarter, it looked like the Mavs were starting to pull back as the lead stretched to double digits. But the start of the fourth quarter is when the game was won. The Mavs had a big race, took the lead at 22 and never looked back.
Here are three things about the great victory that pushed Dallas to 0.500.
A great game by Luka Doncic not represented in the score of the box
Luka finished the night with a pedestrian (for him) 27 points on 11 of 21 shots from the field to accompany seven assists and six rebounds. For most NBA players, it’s a career night. But for Luka, those numbers are pretty boring.
It was one of those Luka games, however, that didn’t fully show up in the box score. He had his fingerprints all over this game from start to finish.
His first shift was a masterpiece. He had 15 points on 6 of 9 shots from the field and added four assists and three rebounds. He was losing dimes, competing in defense and scoring all over the field. He set the tone for the offense and the team met his intensity.
As the game progressed it slowed down a bit in terms of digital production, but it was still all over the place. He even got his hands on the passing lanes, wreaking havoc throughout Brooklyn.
If you just tick the score box, it looks like a good game for Luka, but it was actually a classic superstar performance.
Dorian Finney-Smith, say hello!
Dorian Finney-Smith has had a lot of heartache this season. He wasn’t the type the Mavs needed him to be. But tonight he was everything they could have hoped for and more.
Finney-Smith scored 12 points on 5 of 6 shots from the field and 2 of 3 shots from depth to go along with eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, one block and zero rolls. It was an extraordinarily clean Finney-Smith game, except, of course, when he messed up the game on purpose.
It was one dog on defense. He stayed active, used his length well and fought hard all night. Look at this piece:
He gets stuck on the screen, but instead of giving up, he chases a Harden behind the wheel and viciously crushes his shot, leading to a quick layup for Tim Hardaway Jr.
The generic plus / minus never tells the whole story, but it’s no coincidence that Finney-Smith led the team in this category tonight to an absurd plus-24. More of that, please.
It was a wild Kristaps match – so a normal Kristaps match.
Tonight was Kristaps Porzingis’ experience in a nutshell.
He made the first bucket of the night, looked like he was going to have a good game, then passed out quickly. At one point, he got frustrated that he didn’t get the ball on a previous possession, so he came out of the half court with about 21 seconds left on the shot clock. After that, he kicked a chair for a timeout.
Then, apparently all of a sudden, Porzingis turned beautiful again. The Mavs were posting it (for whatever reason) over and over and over again. But did it work somehow? He still made some weird decisions with the ball in his hands, but the shooting ability was visible.
The biggest advantage of this game for Porzingis was that he seemed to move better in defense. He was more active than he recently was, and it even led to him racking up a few blocks. It’s nice to see.
I guess the other big advantage in terms of Porzingis is that the Mavs’ big run in the fourth quarter happened with Porzingis on the bench. Coincidence? I don’t think so, but maybe it’s for another story.
Here is the post-match podcast, Mavs Moneyball after dark. If you can’t see the integration below “More Mavs Moneyball”, Click here. And if you haven’t already, subscribe by searching for “Mavs Moneyball podcast” in your favorite podcast app.
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