When their defense arrived back from All-Star break about an hour after everybody else, the Mavericks started their stretch drive toward the playoffs with a bang Thursday night.
The Mavericks sent notice to the Phoenix Suns and the rest of the teams in the Western Conference that are ahead of them that the Mavs are not to be discounted as put-up-or-shut-up time arrives in the NBA season.
With Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving on their way to a combined 70 points, the Mavericks overwhelmed the Suns in the second half and took a 123-113 victory at American Airlines Center in the first game after the weeklong break that typically signifies the beginning of the sprint to the regular-season finish line.
The Mavericks won for the seventh consecutive time after closing the pre-break portion of the season with six wins.
“Amazing, I think we have an amazing team,” said Dončić about the way the Mavericks have come together in the past two weeks. “Seven in a row hasn’t happened for a while. So I’m very happy with the guys we have on our team.”
In fact, seven consecutive victories ties for the longest streak for the Mavericks since 2010-11. They also won seven in a row in the 2021-22 season.
“It feels good,” Irving said. “(We) just want to keep it up. There’s definitely more to improve on.”
At 33-23, they pulled even with the Suns in the West standings. Plus, they earned the tiebreaker should the teams end up with identical records by winning the season series two games to one.
Dončić finished with 41 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds.
While Irving had 29 points, five rebounds and three assists.
Devin Booker was terrific for the Suns with 35 points and eight assists in a losing effort.
It was a night that completely turned at the start of the second half.
The Mavericks couldn’t slow down Booker, Kevin Durant and friends in the first half, but they kept themselves in the Suns’ shadow.
Then, they started the third quarter by forcing three missed shots and two turnovers, hit five quick three-pointers as part of a 16-0 blitz that supplied a 76-63 lead.
It was no breeze from there. But the Mavericks never lost the lead. And they are busting out some new defensive schemes to work on before the postseason gets here.
“Luka got his hands on a couple deflections,” coach Jason Kidd said of the third-quarter turnaround. “Being able to rotate, we’re looking at something new defensively and I thought the guys did a really good job of doing that.
“There were maybe a couple mistakes here and there, but no one got upset. The maturity of our group, you could see we’re getting better. I thought it was a great effort start to finish.”
Part of the new defensive look is geared to newcomers P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford. But it also includes a heavy usage of Maxi Kleber, who played the majority of the second half in a bigger lineup with either Gafford or Dereck Lively II.
“Maxi, defensively, he’s the anchor,” Kidd said. “He kind of sets everybody up and understands the rotations. I thought he did an incredible job playing with Gaff. But going big against their small group, if we’re missing, we have to eat rebounds and I thought we did a great job of that tonight. up was good tonight. And we’ll see a little more of that going forward.”
And Washington ended up getting the lion’s share of time matched up with Durant, who needed 23 shots to get his 23 points.
“We just tried to come out aggressive in the second half, tried to get things going,” Washington said of the second half success. “Obviously, shots started to fall, but we had to pick up the pace defensively and we did a good job of that.
“This is only one game obviously. We have a bigger goal in mind. We just want to keep going.”
They hit the road for the next four games, but as the old NBA saying goes, defense travels.
Asked if the Suns’ game reminded him of playoff basketball, Washington said: “I don’t know, I ain’t never been to the playoffs.”
But, indeed, there was some physical play against the Suns, including Grayson Allen’s take-down of Dončić with 2:13 to play. The Suns challenged the hit to Luka’s face, but the decision was upheld.
That came with the Mavericks up 120-108. The Mavericks’ defense was stiff throughout the second half and kept the Suns at bay. Luka’s three-pointer with 1:18 to go made it 123-108.
The best news ahead of the meeting was that the Mavericks are as healthy as they have been since the beginning of the season with only guard Dante Exum (right knee) out.
The Suns were without Bradley Beal (hamstring).
The absences did not prohibit this game’s needle being redlined on the entertainment meter.
Before the game, Kidd joked about how “this is a good test to see who spent the most time in Cabo. Who did their beach work, or their swim work.”
Clearly, Irving didn’t spend the entire week lounging on a beach. He had 17 of the Mavericks points and kept them in the game when they were only down 40-38, despite some suspect defense.
The Mavericks fell behind by as much as 54-43 but kept the Suns in their sights by halftime, down just 63-60 at the break.
X: @ESefko
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