DALLAS, TEXAS — The Mavericks grabbed an impressive comeback win at home against the Lakers 108-93 right before they had to hit the road again.
Winning on Thursday was great, but a few bad breaks happened in the fallout. Due to Kristaps Porzingis rolling his ankle during the win on Thursday he was ruled out for tonight’s matchup forcing Dallas to make some changes to their lineup and the addition of Dwight Powell in the starting lineup has started to pay off to some extent. Tim Hardway Jr. also got the starting nod because Josh Richardson tweaked his hamstring during warmups and became a late scratch. Without specific players in the lineup it would be another night where the Mavericks would be at a disadvantage despite Anthony Davis still being on minute restrictions and Lebron James still being unavailable after rolling his ankle last month.
The Mavericks defense in the first quarter is what stood out the most. Dallas grabbed 4 more total rebounds and 3 more defensive rebounds than the Lakers and only allowed them to convert on 34% of their shots in the first quarter. Dallas’s “Bigs” were the headliners of this offense in the opening quarter. Dwight Powell grabbed 4 boards and Willie Cauley-Stein was a menace in the paint. Despite their strong defensive effort, late quarter turnovers put the Lakers in the position to take the lead. All 5 of the Mavericks starters got on the board which hasn’t been a trend over the last few games, and Dallas scored 10 points off the bench in the first quarter. Dallas got everyone involved in a game where all hands were needed on deck. The Mavericks finished the quarter converting on 50% which was much better than the 36% the Lakers shot from the field and the Mavericks trailed the Lakers 23-26 when the quarter finally wrapped.
The Mavericks had a hard time keeping it all together in the second quarter. Through the first 8 minutes of the quarter Dallas only scored 13 total points compared to the Lakers 20 points and committed some bad turnovers which turned into Laker points on the opposite end of the floor. Dallas turned the ball over 10 times through 20 minutes of play and the Lakers scored 13 points off of those turnovers which was the clear difference maker in the first half. The Lakers quickly flipped their 3 point lead at the end of the first quarter to a comfortable double digit lead to end the first half. The Lakers had three starters finish the first half in double figures and one was Anthony Davis who made all of his minutes count scoring 12 points which is 8 more points than his point total from Thursday night.
Turnovers was the headline of the second quarter, poor shooting from the field was the byline. Dallas converted on 32% of their shots from the field and only converted 3 out of 9 of their shots from beyond the arc. The only part of the first half that was consistent for Dallas was the fact they couldn’t find the bottom of the net from the field or behind the three point line and that in itself could be problematic for this Dallas team that needs to win desperately to stay in the hunt for the 6th seed.
After starting the third quarter in impressive fashion after Ben McClemore and Kyle Kuzma knocked down two threes, they went quiet from the floor and it had much to do with Dallas’s defense. The Mavericks cleaned up their play in the third quarter. They rarely turned the ball over and turned it up a notch on the offensive end. Dwight Powell has asserted himself as the energy guy on the roster because whenever he is on the floor this team plays with a different motor. Dorian Finney-Smith also stepped it up in the third quarter connecting on three pointers at a high clip and helped the Mavericks put together a run that put them back within single digits of taking the lead. The Mavericks got hot from the field in the closing minutes of the quarter and scored on 5 of their final possessions and to cap off their stellar third quarter Tim Hardaway Jr knocked down a last second three pointer to tie the game with a quarter left to play.
Dallas accomplished many things in the third quarter, they cleaned up the turnovers, shot better from the field, and got most of their players involved to stop the Lakers from growing the lead with a quarter left to play.
The Mavericks and Lakers went tit for tat in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. Each time the Mavs scored the Lakers returned the favor, but the momentum the Mavericks gained after that big time shot from Tim Hardaway Jr lingered and couldn’t be denied. Dwight Powell continued his impressive night scoring the Mavericks next three consecutive baskets to give the Mavericks their first lead of the night with a little more than 5 minutes remaining. Again, Dwight Powell’s energy ignited this team at the right time and this time it sucked the energy right out of the Lakers.
Dallas took full advantage of home court advantage and rode the momentum throughout the remainder of the fourth quarter to cap off a comeback win in front of the fans at the American Airlines Center.
