DALLAS, TEXAS — There hasn’t been much losing at home in the month of March only because the Mavericks have hardly played at the American Airlines Center, but they lost this one and it was ugly. The Indiana Pacers defeated the Mavericks 109-94 to steal a win on the road.
With the absence of Luka Doncic due to lower back tightness the Mavericks again went with Jalen Brunson to start the game at point to outfit their starting lineup. It was a dominant first quarter for Kristaps Porzingis who scored 13 of the Mavericks first 20 points in the first quarter shooting converting on 5 out of 8 of his shots. Rick Carlisle went to Tim Hardaway Jr and THJ didn’t disappoint. Hardaway Jr scored 9 first quarter points off the bench and right before the end of the first quarter he threw it down with force to bring the Mavericks to within two points of the lead. Dallas’s biggest problem was slowing down how efficient the Pacers were on offense. Indiana converted on 52% of their shots and over 40% of their shots from outside the arc and 9 out of 10 players scored at least one basket. It’s hard to beat teams when the ball is being spread so evenly amongst them with Doug McDermott & Edmond Sumner scoring 22 points off the bench combined.
The Pacers made their bacon from the three point line throughout the first quarter and into the second. The Pacers converted on 11 out of their 20 shots from the three point line which eventually led to the Pacers taking a 14 point lead on the road. Dallas was hard pressed to get much scoring production from anyone for a stretch, KP who started out on fire only scored 2 points in the first 9 minutes of the second quarter and only 2 players scored over 5 points through two and a half quarters.
Dallas finished the first half only converting on 37% of their shots from the field and less than 20% which marks another sub par shooting performance like the one the Mavericks experienced on Wednesday. It left a simple road map for the Pacers to follow, force Dallas to take more difficult shots and in return even with an average performance from the field their lead would be less difficult to maintain.
In the third quarter the Mavericks possessed the intensity on both ends of the floor they lacked in the first two quarters. The team began to play jointly and gave the Pacers headaches. Josh Richardson nabbed a steal to start the second half and kept his hands in the passing lanes. Kristaps Porzingis followed up his first half performance with another solid outing on the offensive end in the third quarter. Porzingis finished the third quarter converting on 6 of his 10 shot attempts scoring 14 third quarter points enhancing his impressive stat line of 29 points and 16 rebounds through three quarters of play. Josh Richardson & Tim Hardaway Jr combined to connect on 10 shots out of 23 attempts that included 3 three pointers to give the Mavericks the boost they needed to cut the Pacers lead to single digits once more.
Dallas went into the fourth quarter playing a game of back and forth with the Pacers and not giving up much on the defensive end initially, but quickly died down once Indiana found ways to disrupt the Mavericks on the defensive end and parlay those turnovers into scoring opportunities. The Pacers were able to do enough to extend their lead even further making a Mavericks comeback less and less likely after failing to take advantage of cutting the Pacers lead to within 4 points midway through the fourth quarter. The Pacers continued their streak of scoring on the offensive and turned their 4 point lead into a 20 point deficit before the Mavericks could blink. The Mavericks lost their second home game in the month of March and will look to bounce back tomorrow night against the New Orleans Pelicans.
