The Dallas Mavericks, on a special night honoring U.S. troops with its annual Seats For Soldiers night, came away with an ugly, yet important win over the Orlando Magic, 107-106 to move to 5-2 and 2nd place in the Western Conference.
The theme of this week’s practice for Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle was spent focusing on the defensive end after the Mavs gave up a 111 and 119 points in back to back games to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers.
Carlisle, while pleased with how the team has come together early on this season, the NBA champion coach has expected more from his team on the defensive end early on in the season.
On Wednesday night Dallas opened the first half struggling out of the gate on both sides of the court, particularly Kristaps Porzingis and star G-F Luka Doncic, who in the first quarter combined together for a total 4 points on just 1-7 shooting.
The Mavs got off to a poor start with 11 turnovers and giving up 22 points in the paint. Magic guard Markelle Fultz aggressively knifed through the Mavs defense as the Magic asserted themselves early. The Magic scored 7 second chance points on 4 offensive rebounds.
The struggles of Doncic and Porzingis were compounded by the Mavs team shooting woes going just 7-18 (38.9%) in the first quarter. The Magic kept the Mavs in the game early going 0-7 from the 3 point line as they lead 28-25 after the first period.
The second quarter started off much the same for the Mavericks, but the Mavs got a huge lift from veteran point guard J.J. Barea who came off the bench to hit 3 three-pointers and scored 11 points to get the Mavs back in the game at halftime 56-54. The 14-year veteran gave the Mavs a huge lift that kept the Mavericks in the game throughout the 2nd quarter.
Barea, 35, made his season debut after coming off an Achilles tear back in January. The veteran guard made his presence felt as the Mavericks trailed by 9 when Barea hit back-to-back three’s to cut the lead to 3 and by the end of the 2nd quarter Barea’s energy and toughness had the Mavs only down 2 at the half.
The Mavericks struggled defensively during the first half giving up 56 points to the Magic, who were led by F Aaron Gordon who lead all scorers at the half with an efficient 21 points on 9-11 shooting..
The Mavericks came out for the second half displaying much more energy and urgency, especially during the 3rd quarter as the returning Maxi Kleber and star Luka Doncic both had big 3rd quarters.
Doncic brought the Mavs crowd to its feet with a stellar 3rd quarter performance and after taking a shot in the left arm and coming up hobbling on his left ankle, Doncic’s toughness and grit propelled the Mavericks to a 7 point lead after three quarters.
Doncic and Kleber combined for 21 points in the 3rd quarter as the Mavs outscored the Magic by 9 to give them the lead going into the fourth quarter.
As the Mavericks entered into the 4th quarter up seven, they did their best to keep the Magic in the game with turnovers and sloppy play at times during the final frame. G Seth Curry, who had started the game, only played 7 minutes and did not play at all in the second half until about 7 seconds left, more to come on Curry.
Meanwhile, contributions from G Tim Hardaway Jr., with timely three-point shooting and energy and effort plays from Dwight Powell, allowed the Mavericks to keep the Magic at bay as the game entered into its final seconds.
Doncic, who had an incredible 2nd half scoring 21 of his 27 points, including 12 in the 3rd quarter, nearly gave the game away at the end of the fourth.
Doncic turned the ball over with 7.7 seconds left to give the ball back to Orlando, but Aaron Gordon, who struggled during the 2nd half, committed an offensive foul to give the ball back to the Mavericks.
Curry, who hadn’t played at all during the 2nd half after being benched for Barea, re-entered the game during the waning seconds, as Curry is one of the Mavs best free throw shooters. Curry was immediately fouled upon entering the game and with 6.7 missed both free throws to give the Magic a chance to win.
Orlando missed a last second three-point attempt by Nikola Vucevic to allow the Mavericks to hang on for the 107-106 win.
The Mavericks struggled out of the gate giving up offensive rebounds to the big front court of the Magic and compounded matters with bad turnovers. Despite the inconsistent play, the Mavericks found a way to win to move to 2-2 at home this season.
The Mavs defensive effort was much better in the second half as Markelle Futlz fouled out and Gordon was held in check after having a stellar first half.
Dallas’ resilience showed throughout the game as they struggled to find their rhythm offensively consistently throughout the game, but found a way to overcome the struggles on both ends.
J.J. Barea spoke about that resiliency after the game saying,
“I think its gonna help a lot, we didn’t play our best, but we still got the win…its gonna give us some confidence going into the next game.”
The Mavs, 5-2, get back on the floor on Friday at home against the New York Knicks.
Kristaps Porzingis, who continues to work his way back after missing the last 20 months with his ACL tear, was very introspective about his performance as he continues to work through his struggles.
Porzingis saying after the game,
“I have to get the feel back, I have to get it back…”
An introspective, yet visibly frustrated Porzingis further said,
“…the spots that I’m getting to to get my shots are not maybe the usually spots that I was getting used to when I played in New York…its a mix of a lot of things.”
Looking to Friday’s game, things will be ratcheted up for the Mavs as Porzingis will play against his former Knicks team for the first time.
Plenty of New York media will be on hand to see if Porzingis can in fact ‘get the feel back’ as the Mavs look to win back to back home games.
The Mavs continue to find their way as they navigate through a tough Western Conference, but a win like this, after not getting their best effort throughout significant portions of the game, will bode well as they look to put it together throughout the rest of the regular season.
The Mavericks take on the New York Knicks Friday night at 8:30 pm est.
Flip the pages to see videos of Porzingis, Doncic, Barea, and more talking about Wednesday night’s win.