The first four games of the Mavericks series against the Utah Jazz were decided by eight points or less, but Game Five was over quickly in Dallas on Monday night.
The Mavericks routed the Jazz with a dominating 102-77 win to take a 3-2 series lead. Dallas now has a chance to seal the franchise’s first playoff series win since their 2011 championship-winning season on Thursday in Salt Lake City.
If things go awry in Utah, the Mavericks will still have one more chance to seal the series, with a Game Seven winner-take-all in Dallas on Saturday.
The odds are in Dallas’ favor. Of the 219 best-of-seven playoff series in NBA history that have started 2-2, 180 teams (82.2%) that won Game Five went on to win the series.
Luka Doncic led the charge with 33 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists, in his second game back from a left calf strain.
“The ball was just going in for him,” Jalen Brunson said of Doncic. “We feed off that. The fans feed off that. He’s one of a kind. Makes life a lot easier.”
Brunson continued his breakout postseason with 24 points, five rebounds, and four assists.
The Mavericks wasted no time exerting their dominance in front of a celebrity-filled crowd in Dallas. Troy Aikman, Patrick Mahomes, and Kyler Murray watched as the Mavericks held the Jazz to 36 points in the first half, their lowest halftime total of the season.
Dwight Powell got the crowd going early with all eight of his points on 4-of-4 shooting in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Brunson (13 points), Dorian Finney-Smith (13 points), and Doncic (11 points) combined to outscore the Jazz (36 points) by themselves in the first half.
Dallas’ defense was exceptional, scrambling to challenge every shot. The Jazz missed their first eight three-pointers and 15 of their first 17. They finished the game having made a putrid 3-of-30 (10%) three-point attempts and 38% of their shots overall.
Utah’s three leading scorers struggled mightily. Donovan Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Jordan Clarkson combined to go 0-for-16 from the three-point range.
Mitchell, who averaged 30 points in the first four games of the series, scored just nine points. Bogdanovic, who had games of 24, 25, and 26 points in this series, went 0-of-9, scoring just two points from the free-throw line.
Utah lost all hope with a 5:29 scoreless drought in the second quarter. The Mavericks took advantage and turned an eight-point lead into a 20-point advantage. Dallas closed the second quarter on a 22-4 run to take a 52-36 halftime lead.
The dominant first half for Dallas continued into the third quarter. Doncic scored Dallas’ first eight points in the first 2:52 after halftime. Shortly after that, he provided the exclamation point with back-to-back three-pointers for a 74-46 lead.
A little while later, he swished another three, giving Dallas their largest lead of the game at 33 points (79-46) as the crowd erupted and the Jazz took a timeout.
Doncic scored 19 points in the third, the total amount that Utah as a team scored in the quarter.
“It’s not hard to talk ad nauseam about Luka Doncic’s ability to make plays,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “He plays in such an artistic way.”
The Mavericks finished the third quarter with a commanding 81-55 lead.
The lead was too much to overcome for Utah as Dallas coasted through the fourth. Things did get chippy at one point when Doncic drove to the rim with around five minutes remaining and went up for a dunk attempt. Jazz center Hassan Whiteside, waiting at the rim, fouled Doncic and then pushed him to the ground.
Finney-Smith and Reggie Bullock came to Doncic’s defense, going nose-to-nose with Whiteside, who shoved them both. Coaches from both teams frantically rushed to the court to separate the players.
Whiteside was assessed two technical fouls for the shoves and was ejected. Finney-Smith and Bullock each received a technical foul, resulting in Bullock’s ejection, as it was his second of the game.
“It was nothing,” Doncic said. “It’s playoffs, man. There’s [always] going to be … attention, but it was nothing. I tried to dunk it. Wasn’t successful. These things happen in the playoffs.
Later in the final quarter, Utah’s Mitchell left the game with an apparent hamstring injury. He will undergo further testing before Game Six on Thursday. If the All-Star guard is forced to miss the game, it will boost the Mavericks’ chances of ending the series in front of the raucous Utah fans.
However, Dallas knows it cannot get comfortable with a 3-2 series lead. After all, the Mavericks held the same 3-2 first-round advantage last June against the Los Angeles Clippers, only to lose two straight to be eliminated.
“I don’t even remember that,” Finney-Smith said with a smile when asked about last year’s playoff collapse. “I don’t even remember last year. Nah, but we put ourselves in a great spot. We’ve just got to handle our business in Utah.”