The Dallas Mavericks were thoroughly defeated on March 9 in Dallas, falling 107-77 to the New York Knicks. It may have been the team’s worst performance of the season.
The Knicks entered the game with a 27-38 record and outside of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. The Mavericks entered the game at 40-25, solidly in playoff position in the West, having won 11 of their last 13 games and 24 of 31 since New Year’s Eve.
Dallas also had a five-game win streak and hopes of sealing an undefeated streak of four consecutive home games. Instead, the Mavericks got a bitter end to their homestand. They will now embark on five straight road games, some against title contenders including the Celtics, Nets, and 76ers.
“A lot of good things on this home stand,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “We can’t let one game ruin that. And we’re not.”
Luka Doncic excelled as can usually be expected, scoring 31 points and adding six rebounds. However, he was the only one. The rest of the Mavericks starting lineup only chipped in a combined 25 points, and Dallas had a season-low 11 total assists as a team.
“We won five games in a row,” said Doncic. “We had one bad game. That’s it. So, we’ll move on.”
Spencer Dinwiddie was the only player besides Doncic to score double-digits, adding 13 points off the bench and making 2-of-4 three-pointers.
Besides Dinwiddie and Doncic, the rest of the team made only 1-of-26 three-pointers. Doncic even struggled from deep, making only 3-of-11 from long range.
Overall, the Mavericks made only 6-of-44 (13.6%) three-point attempts, their season-worst percentage in a game. Dallas missed 22 of their first 27 shot attempts, including their first 19 three-pointers.
“We might have overdribbled a little bit, but we had great looks; a lot of them were wide open,” Kidd said. “That’s basketball. You make some; you miss some. We missed a lot of ’em tonight, unfortunately.”
New York was the more physical team, out-rebounding Dallas 55-37 and earning 33 free throw attempts, compared to the Mavericks’ 25.
New York appears to have Dallas’ number. When these teams previously met on January 12 in Madison Square Garden, the Knicks snapped a Mavericks six-game winning streak with a resounding 108-85 victory. Of Dallas’ five defeats by 20 or more points this season, two have come in games against New York.
The Knicks have now won eight of their last 12 meetings against the Mavericks, including five straight at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Dallas started poorly while New York raced out to a 31-17 lead after one quarter, and it did not get much better from there. With 4:44 left in the second quarter, the Knicks had doubled up the Mavericks with a 50-25 lead. Dallas trailed by as many as 28 points in the first half and went into the halftime break trailing 61-34.
The Mavericks made only 1-of-21 three-point attempts before halftime, and the 34 points in the half was their lowest score in half all season. Their previous lowest-scoring first half was with 37 points in a 97-90 loss at Memphis on December 4.
The final score was not as bad as it could have been for Dallas, thanks to an explosive third quarter from Doncic in which he scored 17 of his 31 points. The Mavericks briefly got within 14 points, 74-60, with 2:38 remaining in the third, but the abysmal first half was too much to overcome.
The fourth quarter was worse. Dallas was down 17 early on and only scored 10 points the rest of the game. The Mavericks finished with 12 total points in the fourth quarter, tying with their lowest for any quarter in this season (12 in the third quarter of a 106-75 loss at Denver on October 29).
Kidd pulled all the Dallas starters out of the game with five minutes remaining. However, it was just 19 seconds after Doncic picked up his 14th technical foul of the season. If a player gets 16 technical fouls, they are suspended for one game. The technical count resets at the start of the playoffs.
Doncic had one technical foul rescinded by the NBA earlier this month. He indicated that he expects the same to happen again.
“I’m going to, how you say, challenge this one, too,” Doncic said. “It’s crazy.”
Dallas begins the five-game road trip on March 11 in Houston against the Rockets.
