The Dallas Mavericks could not string together their first winning streak of the season, dropping the second night of a back-to-back against the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-94 in Dallas Monday night.
This was a strange game, with both teams shorthanded. Dallas was missing both Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively, forcing the Mavericks to play Anthony Davis at center for most of the game. The Thunder controlled the game through three quarters thanks to some stifling defense, but the fourth quarter is when things got interesting.
Behind a Jaden Hardy and D’Angelo Russell back court, the Mavericks went on a 25-4 run, turning a 20-plus point blowout into a one point game with under five minutes remaining. OKC would score the final six points of the game to close it out.
Here are the numbers were noticed.
68-36: Thunder’s advantage on points in the paint
A big benefit of the Mavericks, well, big lineup is that they theoretically should be controlling the paint on both ends of the floor. Through four games so far this season that hasn’t proven to be the case.
Dallas once again got blasted in the paint on offense and on defense. This follows the Spurs loss on opening night when San Antonio had a similar advantage near the basket. OKC was able to attack Dallas with uncontested line drives, leaving Davis out to try and try to clean up all the mistakes at the rim. Dallas even played a mostly faster lineup tonight and it still didn’t have enough footspeed to contain the Thunder’s perimeter players.
On the other end, outside of Davis, Dallas couldn’t touch the paint. Even with more minutes for D’Angelo Russell, the Mavericks just do not possess a ton of downhill threats for this offense to really groove.
9: Mavericks turnovers
A huge issue for Dallas through the first three games were turnovers, which isn’t surprising considering Dallas has a thin guard rotation and trying to play Cooper Flagg at point guard. Tonight the Mavericks played more Russell and even more Hardy, and Dallas did a good job keeping control of the ball.
The lack of turnovers is perhaps the main reason the Mavericks were still within shouting distance in the fourth quarter. If Dallas was as sloppy as they were in the first three games, OKC might have had such a big lead that the fourth quarter could have been all of garbage time.
6: Anthony Davis’ makes in the restricted area
Against the Raptors on Sunday, Davis had nine makes in the restricted area, and he followed that up with a perfect 6-for-6 showing near the basket against the Thunder.
It’s no surprise: Davis is at his best in the paint. Whenever he attempts to shoot jumpers things don’t end well. Playing more Russell these last two games has done great things for Davis in this regard, as Dallas having actual point guards and table-setters on the floor means Davis can focus more on play-finishing instead of play-starting.
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