The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Golden State Warriors, 109-99, Wednesday night at American Airlines Center. But the status
of superstar point guard Luka Dončić going forward overshadowed the victory.
With the Mavs up by 15 points, Dončić re-entered the game with 7:08 remaining. Some 22 seconds later he left the game for good with left hamstring soreness and with the Mavs up, 94-72, after he hurled an alley-oop slam dunk pass to Daniel Gafford.
Mavs coach Jason Kidd said he didn’t know if Dončić would be able to play in Thursday’s pivotal game at Oklahoma City.
“We’ll see,” Kidd said. “We’ll have a better answer tomorrow.
“This is a fluid thing. This is being talked about now. We’ll find out here in a couple minutes if he’s going (to Oklahoma City) or not.”
In winning for the fourth straight game, the victory padded the Mavs’ record to 38-28, while the Warriors dropped to 34-31. The Mavs are also 2-0 against the Warriors this season, and the two teams will play each other two more times this year with a chance that the tie-breaker could come into play.
“Right now we don’t have time to talk about tie-breakers,” Kidd said. “It’s a little early.
“Let’s focus on the game plan and continue to build our trust and our chemistry.”
While the Mavs struggled from three-point land – they were just 6-of-27 from downtown – they did combine to shoot a healthy 53.7 percent from the field. Daniel Gafford certainly helped that stat line by going 5-for-5 from the field, and he now has now made 33 straight field goals – just two shy of
the NBA record of 35 in a row set by Wilt Chamberlain in 1967.
On if he’s aware of his current streak, Gafford said: “At some point it was like that. But I try to tell myself not to worry about it because if I do it, that’s good and I’m going to celebrate it, of course.
“But at the of the day, I just want to come out and win games. I’ll worry about the record afterwards, for sure.”
Gafford finished the night with five dunks, 10 points, six rebounds and a season-high seven blocks. He led a block party that saw the Mavs collect a season-high 13 blocks, which were their most since they also recorded 13 blocks on March 4, 2020 against New Orleans.
“That’s very impressive,” guard Josh Green said of Gafford’s seven blocks. “It’s a huge rim presence with (Dereck Lively II) and Gaff.
“It’s scary. It’s hard to finish over them.”
Indeed, it was as the Warriors – playing without the injured Stephen Curry and Draymond Green – converted just 40.2 percent of their shots and turned the ball over 17 times.
With their three-point shot failing them, the Mavs made a concerted effort to get into the lane. As a result, they outscored the Warriors, 68-48, in the paint.
“It was old school basketball – twos,” Kidd said. “I thought, again, being able to pivot from we got great looks at threes and not just settling.
“We could have been stubborn tonight to prove that we’re going to make threes. Josh being able to turn down open threes and get to the rim was big for us to keep the lead, but also just showed we’re growing as a team. We recognized if something isn’t working for us, to be able to pivot and get to the paint and get to the rim (is a plus).”
The Mavs only held a 76-70 lead entering the pivotal fourth quarter. Lively opened the final quarter with a dunk and a basket inside, and P.J. Washington and Kyrie Irving followed with buckets on drives to the basket.
Irving then buried a jumper and added a free throw after Chris Paul was whistled for a technical foul. A three-pointer by Tim Hardaway Jr. padded the Mavs’ lead to 90-74 with 7:32 left.
In all, the Mavs had the ball hopping around the perimeter and finished with 30 assists on 44 made baskets.
“Thirty assists is a true sign the ball had energy and we were all making the right plays and wanting to see each other do well,” said Irving, who collected 23 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists. “I’m not saying we don’t have that any other night.
“But it just felt good to get everybody some points and get out in transition and get some easy (baskets).”
The score was close most of the way until the Mavericks finally shook loose with that explosive offensive burst at the outset of the fourth quarter.
“They missed some shots that they could’ve made, clearly,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said in reference to the Mavs. “But overall I thought our defense was not the problem. It was much more our offense.
“They had 13 blocked shots. A lot of those were just us kind of wildly driving into Gafford without getting a body into him first to take him out of his shot-blocking position. Then just a lot of stagnant possessions and not enough flow (and) 
not enough movement.”
Washington had 11 points, seven rebounds and two steals for the Mavs, and Green collected 11 points and five boards. The Warriors were led by Jonathan Kuminga (27 points) and Andrew Wiggins (17 points), while Klay Thompson scored just eight points on 3-of-13 shots.
On the difficulties of playing the Warriors without Curry and Green, Gafford said: “You just have to get over that hump where it’s like, ‘They’ve got their two best players out. Now we can go just ease by.’
“Those guys are still NBA players, and they are going to go out there and play at 110 percent.”
Now, the Mavs travel up the street to play an Oklahoma City team that’s second in the Western Conference with an impressive 45-20 record. And the Mavs may have to face this tall task without Dončić.
So, how tough is Thursday’s second leg of a back-to-back?
“Man, we get paid to do this,” Irving said. “It’s not tough, man.
“We just got to get prepared and get ready to play a tough team in a tough environment.”
X: @DwainPrice
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