The Dallas Mavericks dropped the hammer on the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night, winning 115 to 104, but chances are you already knew that. Otherwise, click here to read more about how the game was won.
Dallas now has three games over 0.500 and is great. Let’s jump straight to the specific numbers that drove the Mavericks to victory.
51-30: Dallas gains a huge recovery margin
In a rarity for the Mavericks this season, Dallas dominated the boards, striking the Spurs by a massive +21 margin. They almost doubled San Antonio on the offensive glass, 13-7 and those extra looks proved to be huge, as the Mavericks were able to pull away late from an aggressive Spurs team. Porzingis caught four of his 14 rebounds, the record for the season, on the offensive side, and those looks allowed the Mavericks to lead directly into our next data point.
21-2: Second chance points boost the Mavericks
The Mavericks are in 27th place in the league in second chance scoring, so watching Porzingis grab and attack with one hand under the back plate and then come back and score was a delightful move that I would like to see more of. In a game decided by just 11 points, Dallas needed those points.
4223: Number of points Luka Doncic has scored in his career, passing Kendrick Perkins
Did I decide to write this post just so that we could publish this social media graphic again? Possibly.
with her 22 point performance tonight, luka doncic will now retire with more career points than Kendrick Perkins.
doncic played 11,633 minutes less and 616 games less than perkins during his career. pic.twitter.com/m4DoloOVn0
– Mavs Moneyball (@mavsmoneyball) March 11, 2021
Should we feed the troll that is Kendrick Perkins? Of course. But we are nonetheless petty, as long as it’s funny and, considering Perkins’s insane criticism at Doncic, that was too easy. Doncic is very good at basktball. He’s very good at scoring basketball.