LAS VEGAS – Handicapped because the major options in their offensive attack were not in uniform, the Dallas Mavericks just didn’t have the necessary scoring punch needed to beat the Chicago Bulls.
Thus, the Bulls received a game-high 28 points from Antonio Blakeney en route to upending the short-handed Mavs, 95-83, on Wednesday afternoon at the Thomas & Mac Center in the tournament version of the MGM Resorts NBA Summer League 2018.
The Mavs will now play their final game of the summer league on Friday at 5 p.m. CDT at Cox Pavilion against the Washington Wizards in a game that will be televised on ESPNU. The Wizards lost to the Los Angeles Clippers, 89-74, on Wednesday.
Of course, the Mavs (2-2) got themselves into a pickle against the Bulls primarily because they played without four of their top players – Dennis Smith Jr., Johnathan Motley, Dorian Finney-Smith and Luka Doncic. And that, more than anything, had an obvious impact on the final outcome.
Smith and Finney-Smith left Las Vegas before Wednesday’s game, Motley didn’t dress and is through for the summer, and Doncic flew back home to Slovenia – two days after signing his rookie-scale contract.
“It’s obviously going to be different when you know you’re a man down,” summer league coach Jamahl Mosley said. “But with our mentality we have to have the next man up mentality, and these guys came out and played hard.
“It gave these other guys an opportunity to showcase themselves and play a certain way, the way we’re trying to play.”
The Mavs actually led 28-13 late in the first quarter as they had everything going their way. Point guard Jalen Brunson ignited the attack with four points and three assists in the game’s opening five minutes.
However, the 28-15 lead the Mavs held following the first quarter disappeared when Dallas was just 4-of-20 from the field and got outscored 27-12 in the second quarter and trailed 42-40 at the half. From there, the Bulls slowly pulled away and led by as many as 18 points in the second half.
“In a sense we may have gotten a little comfortable from a shot-making standpoint,” Mosley said. “We come out of the gate, you make your first three-out-of-four threes, you feel good, and then you hope that you don’t rely only on your offense.
“And then we had to dig down defensively, and they go on a run. We have to understand that we have to sustain our effort defensively and be solid on defense is who we are versus a gambling, aggressive, trying to get after the basketball from that standpoint type team.”
Kyle Collinsworth led the Mavs with 14 points and 10 rebounds in just 21 minutes, and Phil Greene and Josh Adams popped in 10 points apiece.
“We started the game realty well,” Collinsworth said. “But (the Mavs had) too many mental lapses, we gambled a lot, we turned the ball over too much.
“We just gave them too much and we weren’t hot enough on offense to be able to combat that. So on Friday we have to be better at taking care of the ball and being more solid on defense.”
Collinsworth converted 5-of-10 shots and slithered inside long enough to grab a game-high seven offensive rebounds.
“I think we always have known how Kyle Collinsworth plays,” Mosley said. “He’s a very good guy that does a great job penetrating in the lane, he does a very good job finding guys (and) finishing around the rim.
“He’s a bigger guard, so it allows him to get into the paint, but he does a good job finding (teammates). The one thing he does is crash the boards very well, and that allows him to get us second-chance opportunities and allows us to get other guys shots, which is great.”
Mosley also praised the efforts of rookie center Ray Spalding, who was 4-of-5 from the field and scored nine points. In addition to his scoring, Spalding was very active on the boards while using his rangy body to alter shots.
During one sequence in the first half, Spalding registered a blocked shot, then raced down the floor and drained a 3-pointer from the left corner. Shortly thereafter, Spalding showed off his passing skills as he led a fast break and drilled a nifty bounce pass that led to a layup by Mitch Creek.
“Ray’s been realty good for us,” Mosley said. “He’s been active, he got a few deflections on the ball in the pick-and-roll. He does a very good, he has really good hands.
“Rolling to the rim, we could have gotten him a couple more touches there. But he was doing a really good job just playing his role.”
Brunson also is catching on fast – sans his shooting struggles – as the rookie from Villanova clocked in with yet another solid floor game. Brunson collected eight points and seven assists and had just one turnover in 22 minutes a game after scoring nine points and dispensing eight assists during Monday’s 20-point victory over the Golden State Warriors.
“It’s definitely a learning experience,” said Brunson, who was 2-of-9 from the field. “I find myself getting better every day.
“I mean, it’s how the NBA is going to be. Game after game after game, you’ve got to come back with the same confidence, with the same energy and the same mindset.”
The Mavs shot just 40.8 percent from the field. And even that was bolstered by a red-hot shooting performance in the first quarter when they made 12-of-18 shots.
“We obviously didn’t shoot the ball the way we like to shoot the basketball, and then there were just some critical mistakes that we put on ourselves,” Mosley said. “But we did a lot of things that gave them opportunities to get easier baskets.”
And in the end, that cost the Mavs dearly.
“We got a little complacent,” Collinsworth said. “Coach always said don’t get bored with success, and that’s kind of what we did.
“We were playing the right way, playing solid defense in the right positions, and we kind of got bored with it and wanted to do more and more, and it cost us.”
NOTES: Guard Luka Doncic flew back to his home of Slovenia on Wednesday, and so did coach Rick Carlisle. This is the chance for the two men to bond, much like last summer when Carlisle visited the Fayetteville, N.C., home of then-rookie point guard Dennis Smith Jr. Doncic, who signed his 3-year, $18.567 million rookie-scale contract with the Mavs on Monday, didn’t play in any of the team’s summer league games. . .Summer league Jamahl Mosley said it’s obvious to him that rookie point guard Jalen Brunson has been well groomed by his father, Rick Brunson, who played in the NBA from 1995-‘2006. “(Jalen Brunson) has a great demeanor about him on the court,” Mosley said. “The way he handles pick-and-rolls, the way he sees the floor, the way he understands in huddles what we’re asking him to do, the way he is with his teammates. He understands the flow of the game, he understands the dynamics that go into all of it. He’s seen it before, he’s been around it his hold life, so that definitely plays a huge part in his development and what you see out of him on the court.”. . .Rookie center Kostas Antetokounmpo caught the attention of summer league coach Jamahl Mosley yet again. Against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, Antetokounmpo played 18 minutes, was 2-of-3 from the field, scored four points, snatched three rebounds and picked up a pair of steals and blocked one shot. “I think his upside is tremendous,” Mosley said. “I think he does a really good job of learning and picking up things as the flow of the game goes on. His activity knowing when and where to be, and he just finds a way to track that basketball.”. . .Kyle Collinsworth finds himself in a unique situation in that he was waived by the Mavs last Friday, yet registered a double-double on Wednesday. “I’m a free agent as of right now,” Collinsworth said. “I feel like it all depends on how I handle it and how they handle it. They’re great and I don’t have a problem with it. I’m here to try to win games and compete for myself and for the Dallas Mavericks while I’m on their team in the summer league.”. . .All 11 players who played against the Bulls were on the floor for at least 11 minutes, except Terry Larrier, who played just nine minutes. But Larrier has a legitimate excuse. The Mavs just signed Larrier off Memphis’ summer league team on Tuesday, and the 6-8 forward from UConn hasn’t had a practice session with Dallas just yet. Larrier scored two points on 1-of-2 shooting against the Bulls.
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