For more than three quarters Sunday, the Mavericks played exactly the kind of basketball they needed to in the absence of Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving.
They followed up that stretch of smart, hustling play with 12 minutes of the worst kind of basketball they can play – particularly while missing their two superstars. It resulted in a 112-101 loss to the Denver Nuggets.
Leading by as much as 19 points late in the third quarter, and by 12 early in the fourth, the Mavericks got swamped by the Denver Nuggets, who won the final quarter 33-12. The Mavericks couldn’t make a shot, literally, going 0-for-11 from three-point range. They got outrebounded 15-6 in the quarter.
They may have run out of gas after expending a lot of energy with their defense in the first three quarters, particularly the first and third.
But whatever it was, their well ran completely dry.
“We gave ourselves a chance to win the game,” Spencer Dinwiddie said. “If we’d have had another really good defensive quarter, we’d have been in position to win.
“A lot of it comes down to missed shots. It’s deflating, obviously, when they’re going on a run and we have some open threes. You knock a couple of those down, it stops their run and shifts the momentum. But when you miss those consecutively, it snowballs.”
It definitely rolled down the hill and got bigger and bigger, smothering the Mavericks in the fourth quarter.
But the good news is that they found a way to contain the Nuggets for three quarters. So they have a blueprint.
But they need to fix some things, which brings us to our takeaways:
Glasswork needs attention: The Mavericks got hammered in the rebounding department, 55-37. In the fourth quarter, Nikola Jokic had five rebounds and every Maverick who stepped on the floor combined for six. Rebounding is an effort stat, but it also requires some physical and mental attention. “Physicality,” coach Jason Kidd said. “We have to be a little more physical in the rebounding department. When the shot goes up, we can’t ball-watch, we have to go hit someone. We watched a little too much yesterday afternoon when the shot went up so we have to be aggressive there.”
Klay reaches 16,000: Klay Thompson led the Mavericks with 25 points and that was enough to push him past 16,000 for his career. It’s a nice achievement, but the sharpshooter, who made six three-pointers against the Nuggets, put it in perspective. “It’s cool,” he said. “But it makes you realize how ridiculous it is that LeBron has 40-some thousand. That’s insane. But it’s cool anytime you do something like that in the NBA, it’s special.” Thompson has been getting used to new teammates distributing the ball during the absence of Dončić and Irving. Which brings us to . . .
Point-centers on display: The Nuggets got nine assists (along with 19 points and 18 rebounds) from Jokic, who remains the frontrunner for this season’s MVP, which would be his fourth time to win it. But the Mavericks have developed a nice playmaking center in Dereck Lively II while they have been without Irving and Dončić. He finished with a season-best eight assists, one off his career high. Five of his helpers went to Thompson. “He (Thompson) got good looks,” Kidd said. “They dropped for him. Without Luka and Kai, the quarterbacks, it’s tough. We’re playing through D-Live and P.J. (Washington) and Spencer (Dinwiddie). “(Lively) is one of our better passers and quarterbacks that we trust. He did a great job in that department today.”
X: @ESefko
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