5 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE 125-110 LOSS TO THE MIAMI HEAT
The Dallas Mavericks’ record dropped to 4-3 following Tuesday’s 125-110 loss to the Miami Heat at American Airlines Center.
While the Mavs only committed nine turnovers in this game, they could only force the Heat into committing just seven turnovers. That limited the Mavs’ abilities to get out and collect any easy transition baskets.
Miami outscored the Mavs in fast break points (19-3) and in points in the paint (48-38). The Heat also out-shot the Mavs from the field – 51.8 percent to 44 percent.
Here are our five takeaways from Tuesday’s game.
ROARING 20’s: Just to show that they can beat a team in a variety of ways, the Heat had four players score at least 22 points on Tuesday. That’s the first time in their illustrious history that’s happened. And remember, this is a franchise that fielded Hall of Famers Chris Bosh, Ray Allen and Dwyane Wade — along with future Hall of Famer LeBron James — on the same team! Miami got 25 points from Tyler Herro, 23 from Jimmy Butler, and 22 apiece from Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry. Maybe now you see why many are predicting it will be the Heat who will walk away with this season’s NBA championship.
RAINING THREES: It may have been raining on the outside of American Airlines Center on Tuesday night, but the Miami Heat were raining threes on the inside of AAC, much to the chagrin of the Mavs. And these were not just ordinary three-pointers. It seemed as if every time the Mavs would piece together a quality rally to get back in the game, someone from the Heat would bury a three to silence the crowd. Overall, Miami made 13-of-25 shots from downtown for a pretty significantly hot 52 percent. Kyle Lowry was 6-of-9 from three, Tyler Herro was 3-of-6 and Duncan Robinson was 2-of-2.
DONCIC ROARED BY KIDD: It may have gotten lost in the shuffle, but Luka Doncic passed his coach – Jason Kidd – and moved into the No. 14th spot on the Mavs’ all-time scoring list. Doncic needed just nine points to pass Kidd and he got that out of the way early in the second quarter. Overall, Doncic finished the night with a season-high 33 points. He was 10-of-24 from the field, 3-of-9 from three-point land and 10-of-12 from the free throw stripe. Doncic now has 5,283 career points to 5,258 for Kidd (in a Mavs’ uniform). Next up in front of Doncic is J. J. Barea, who poured in 5,458 points in his career with Dallas.
MISSING PORZINGIS/KLEBER: This was a night when the Mavs could have truly used big men Kristaps Porzingis and Maxi Kleber, because Bam Adebayo and Dewayne Dedmon did way too much damage inside the paint for Miami. In addition to his 22 points, Adebayo collected 13 rebounds and blocked two shots. And Dedmon came off the bench to get 10 points, five rebounds and a blocked shot in only 14 minutes. Meanwhile, Porzingis missed his fourth straight game with lower back tightness, and Kleber also didn’t dress for Tuesday’s game due to a left oblique strain.
SECOND QUARTER MELTDOWN: In the first quarter, things were going relatively cool for the Mavs. They led at one point, 20-9, and were still clinging to a 30-24 lead when the quarter ended. Then came the second quarter. The dreaded second quarter. During that 12-minute span, the Heat outscored the Mavs by a 46-32 margin. As coach Jason Kidd said: “That was pretty much the game when you look at it as a whole.” In the second quarter, Tyler Herro scored 15 points for Miami and was 3-of-4 from 3-point range, and Kyle Lowry tallied nine points and was 3-of-3 from downtown.
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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