The Dallas Mavericks won their ninth street game of the season, defeating the Orlando Magic 130-124. Luka Doncic led Dallas with almost a double triple, scoring 33 points, catching 10 rebounds and giving nine assists. Nikola Vucevic scored 29 points for Orlando in the defeat.
All five Dallas starters scored a basket in the opening minutes of the game. After starting to paint at will as soon as possible, the Mavericks seemed unable to score consistently, especially after Doncic went to the bench for his usual first quarter rest. Kristaps Porzingis failed to take the Mavericks offensively, missing five consecutive shots. These failures resulted in a good appearance for Magic at the other end, with Evan Fournier and Vucevic scoring 23 points in the quarter. Doncic’s two late trios kept the Mavericks close, but Dallas lost 33-29 after twelve minutes.
Number three dropped frequently during the second quarter for Dallas, as it progressed slowly after starting the delay period. The Mavericks led for up to eight during the game, but continued to have a poor defense in the perimeter pitchers and Dallas not hitting open throws allowed Magic to close within three before the end of time. The Mavericks had a 61-58 lead at halftime.
The third quarter saw the most talented Mavericks simply overtake Magic, especially after Fournier left the game for a long time with a potential back injury. Porzingis hit two top three, breaking a stretch unless it dated Valentine’s Day. Those first glances crumbled the Magic’s defense a little and Dallas began to evict it. Orlando, however, simply would not leave, as they reached several trios of their own. Dallas should have ended the game more, but mistakes at the end of the quarter along with Luka Doncic losing a shoe allowed Orlando to keep the game in single digits. The Mavericks entered their fourth win by 95-86.
Dallas opened with four consecutive points, prompting Orlando to request a quick timeout not a minute after the end of the quarter. The Mavericks went on to put the points in the Magic, but not content to blow up a team, Dallas relaxed just enough that the game lasted longer than necessary while the Magic repeatedly tried to pull himself together. Dallas’s rotten defense allowed Magic to advance five points after going up double digits, but there just wasn’t enough time. Dallas won their 17th win of the season, winning 130-124.
Now, some thoughts:
The Maverick bank continues to crush the second opposing units
Do Jalen Brunson or Tim Hardaway have the potential for the sixth man of the year? Watching the Dallas reserve bench go crazy against another team (50-37), I can’t help wondering what narrative will emerge if Dallas continues its run in the second half of the season.
We have already talked about how good Brunson is and there is no harm in doing it anymore. He’s incredible and the opponent’s defenses probably need to plan the game around him in some way. He attacks the basket relentlessly and is a lot of fun to watch in the transition. Your shoulder shakes in motion is a delight. Hardaway is another monster, although he had a calmer game tonight.
Please hit open photos, this is getting silly
It is probably not shocking to anyone that the Dallas Mavericks are last in the NBA in terms of converting three-point shots, hitting only 36.1% of looks, according to NBA.com tracking data. They should eventually have a positive regression because it is the whole team that cannot get it right. Porzingis, Brunson, Hardaway, Richardson, basically anyone other than Maxi Kleber cannot connect to these looks that Doncic is serving. Tonight is a night when he clearly helped in the hunt and his companions were unable to finish their gaze from afar.
It will swing eventually, they have too many not to do that. But, damn it, if it’s not maddening.
What’s going on with Dallas’s defensive assignments?
This may sound like a breakdown in a win, but Magic is losing so many people that the Mavericks should have kicked them off the court. If the Mavericks are a playoff team, then some details of their game are fair game. I don’t understand what the Mavericks are doing with defensive assignments in almost every game. It is probably worth reading a longer article, but I will start the conversation.
Against Magic, Dallas went with Dorian Finney-Smith in Evan Fournier and Maxi Kleber in Nikola Vucevic. Fournier was 26 and Vucevic was 29.
Dallas’s continuing claim that Finney-Smith is a kind of defensive stopper is something I don’t understand. He is a good aid defender, as he is very active outside the ball. But he cannot navigate the screens to save his life and is defeated by simple dribbling movements. Okay, protecting the guys from dribbling today is difficult. But what is Josh Richardson’s point? Wasn’t he charged like a cork? Am I making this up? I saw the historical data on how well Finney-Smith guards James Harden, but there is no other player that I remember him really defending well.
Vucevic is an All-Star, so the idea that Kleber is the guy who is going to arrest him makes sense, but, frankly, Maxi is not the guy we met last year in defense. When Porzingis had to protect Vucevic, he did an excellent job of bothering him with his length. Defending shots from a distance is a slightly different story, as the Magic was on fire and as long as Porzingis is there with his hand up, that’s all we can ask for.
That sort of thing happens with every game in which it looks like the Mavericks are outperforming themselves in terms of anticipating changes and such, but with drop coverage, that’s not what they do anyway. I’m very open to being wrong here, it’s just that in the game, I don’t understand. They should have beaten the current Magic list by 50.