Sitting on the tail end of a five-games-in-10-days road trip Saturday and apparently ready to come home, the Dallas Mavericks got caught in a flood of
three-point shooting from the Charlotte Hornets. And by the time the splash was over, the Hornets were able to swim out of the Spectrum Center with a 129-108 victory.
As the Hornets were spraying in one three-pointer after another, the Mavs showed signs of fatigue on a road trip where they won their first three games but lost the last two on back-to-back nights.
Luka Doncic put on a terrific show, finishing with 37 points on 13-of-20 shots, including a career-high tying eight triples in 12 attempts. But he got very little help from his teammates as the Mavs dropped to 43-28 heading into Monday’s home game against the up-and-coming Minnesota Timberwolves.
“Luka was very good, but tonight we just couldn’t get anybody to join him,” coach Jason Kidd said. “There’s going to be nights where he doesn’t score the ball or have 30-something points.
“In his book it could be an off night, which is sometimes just a great night for average players. We hold him at a very high level, and again he came to play tonight. Unfortunately, no one else did.”
The Hornets (36-35) blew the doors off this game seemingly in a nano-second. One minute the Mavs were within 74-72 of the Hornets with 6:41 remaining in the third quarter following a three-pointer by Maxi Kleber. And the next minute – and a slew of three-pointers later – the Mavs were staring down the barrel of a 114-82 deficit less than three minutes into the fourth quarter following a massive 40-10 run by Charlotte.
In the third quarter alone, the Hornets poured in 41 points on 7-of-12 shots from downtown. It was Charlotte’s hot shooting from beyond the three-point stripe that kept the Mavs off-balanced all night long.
While the Mavs were 39-of-89 from the field for 43.8 percent – to go with 14-of-38 from downtown – the Hornets shot 50 percent from the floor and converted 20-of-42 baskets from beyond the three-point arc.
The 20 three-pointers are the most the Mavs have allowed in a game this season. That offensive attack put the Mavs in an early hole as Charlotte started the game 7-of-7 from the field, including 5-of-5 from long distance in breaking out to a 16-2 lead that grew as high as 22-6.
“I thought they came right off the jump ball and jumped right on us,” Kidd said. “We were just a step slow defensively.”
Or tired.
The Mavs played without Spencer Dinwiddie — injury recovery, right knee – who drilled game-winning three-pointers earlier on this road trip in Boston and Brooklyn. They sure could have used him on a night when their offense – sans Doncic – was nowhere to be found.
“He’s going to make tough shots,” Hornets coach James Borrego said of Doncic. “You just don’t want to give him the easy stuff — and that’s fouling and reaching in.
“And he is very crafty. He’s seen it all. We’re not going to trick him.”
Despite the early three-point barrage by the Hornets, the Mavs displayed some resiliency and battled back to forge ahead, 47-46, with 4:27 left before halftime following a basket by Brunson, a steal and assist by Brunson to Kleber for a dunk, and a driving layup by Frank Ntilikina.
Shortly thereafter, Ntilikina’s three-pointer padded the Mavs’ lead to 52-50 before the Hornets scored the final 11 points of the first half, capped by consecutive three-pointers from P. J. Washington and Kelly Oubre Jr.
“I thought the character of the team — we fought back and actually took a lead,” Kidd said. “And then they responded with another run.
“After taking on so many of their runs and fighting back, we just couldn’t overcome.”
It marked the first time the Mavs dropped two straight games since Jan. 30 and Feb. 2 during a pair of subpar performances against a pair of NBA bottom feeders – Orlando and Oklahoma City.
“
Bad games are going to come,” Doncic said. “You just keep going. Do the same routine. Just keep going and trust the process.”
Besides Doncic, the Mavs got 12 points and six rebounds from Ntilikina, 10 points and nine rebounds from Marquese Chriss, and 10 points from Brunson. Kidd also had high praise for second-year forward Josh Green, who finished with nine points and three rebounds in just 21 minutes.
“He’s someone who’s always a been a positive on the floor for us,” Kidd said. “During this blowout, he’s just minus six (in the plus/minus category), which shows that when he’s on the floor good things are happening on both ends of the floor.
“He’s trending in the right way offensively and he’s always been trending for us defensively. So we just need him to continue to keep playing the way that he’s playing.”
The Hornets obviously had the fresher legs in this game since they hadn’t played since beating Atlanta (116-106) on Wednesday, while the Mavs entered Saturday’s contest after losing in Philadelphia (111-101) on Friday. The Hornets kept pushing the pace.
“We were 3-2 on this road trip, which is not bad at all,” Doncic said. “We just got to continue to play like we can.
“We have great players. Sometimes you just can’t win. These two games, we didn’t play as good as we wanted, but we’ll bounce back.”
That’s the message Kidd is sharing with his team as the Mavs now turn their attention to the Timberwolves, who come to Dallas red-hot and trending upward after drilling the defending world champion Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday, 138-119.
“We ended this trip on a positive in a sense of going 3-2, so there’s a lot of good things to take away,” Kidd said. “We’re not just focused on one game. This is a journey of playing 82 (regular season games) to prepare for the playoffs.
“There’s some good things that we did do in this game and there’s a lot of things that we can do better. It didn’t end the way we wanted it to, so now we’ve got to get home and protect home.”
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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