The Mavericks have been on the other side of this brutal equation — more times than they care to remember.
They’ve watched leads disappear. Lost games they felt they should have won. Been disappointed and wondered how in the world they could leave the court without a victory.
This time, it was the Portland Trail Blazers lamenting that they let one get away.
“You score nine points in the fourth quarter, you’re going to have a hard time winning the game,” Damian Lillard said. “It shouldn’t have come down to that, period. You play with fire and you see the result of that.”
The Mavericks have said that a time or 10 in the last couple seasons as well.
As Rick Carlisle said, they pretty much had to pitch a shutout in the fourth quarter if they were going to pull out a victory Sunday afternoon. All they did was outscore the Blazers 24-9 in the period and pull out a 102-101 victory at American Airlines Center.
They did it with Luka Doncic greatness on the offensive end. But they also did it with heavy doses of grit on the defensive end by Dorian Finney-Smith and Maxi Kleber.
It was Finney-Smith who got the call to guard Lillard in the final minutes of a one-possession game after Lillard had gone off for 21 of his 30 points in the third quarter, after which the Blazers led 92-78.
In the fourth quarter, Lillard was 0-for-4 with two turnovers. It was Finney-Smith who guarded Lillard, with Kleber’s help, on the final play when the Blazers had a chance to win it.
“He’s quick and he kind of lulls you to sleep,” Finney-Smith said. “I knew whenever he’s dribbling and it looks like he might pull up, he might change gears. So I just wanted to stay close so I could make it hard and contested and make him finish over me.
“He’s a great player and everybody knows he wants that shot. So at the end of the game, they didn’t call a timeout. Obviously, they trust him. It was great team defense. And Maxi did a great job of walling up at the end.”
Kleber’s effort on the game-saving defensive possession drew high praise from coach Rick Carlisle.
“He had a couple great verticals,” Carlisle said. “The last possession when Lillard got a little bit of an angle on Dorian, he was there and went vertical and was able to cause the miss and then come down with the rebound. That’s an amazing multiple effort play to be able to do both. To go vertical, then jump up again and come down with the ball.
“To beat a team like this in this fashion, with a comeback like this, you’re going to have to be almost perfect down the stretch. And our guys were. There was no other way it was going to get done.”
This was a good example of how the Mavericks are going to have to play the rest of the way if they hope to get into the playoff picture. They have to be a tenacious team that plays through whatever adversity comes their way.
They also have to have players who can support Doncic, who is being relied on to do virtually everything since the trades involving Dennis Smith Jr., DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews and Harrison Barnes.
It requires plays like they got from Finney-Smith in the fourth quarter when Carlisle put him on Lillard.
“It’s a move that you hope to be able to make with a guy like Finney-Smith,” Carlisle said. “I think it’s a difficult ‘ask’ to have a guy like that guard him the entire game. In this case, we went to it late. Lillard’s a great player. He’s an all-star and one of these years he’ll be a top MVP candidate. He’s that good. He’s going to have some stretches like that. But as a team, we did a great job in the last six minutes to get the win.”
It was why they were able to pull out a victory that looked for the longest time like it would never happen.
Twitter: @ESefko
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