Luka Doncic was on a heater – again.
But after Doncic left for good with a right heel contusion early in the third quarter, the Dallas Mavericks were forced to hold on for dear life before edging the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-106, on Thursday night at American Airlines Center. With the win, the Mavs improved to 28-25, while the Pelicans dropped to 26-27.
The Mavs were cruising along with an 81-55 lead when Doncic got injured with 7:12 remaining in the third quarter on a play when he was fouled by Brandon Ingram. With no Doncic to turn to the rest of the game – he left for good with 6:47 left in the third quarter — the Mavs suddenly went stone cold, while his departure seemed to light a fire under the Pelicans.
“The ball just didn’t go down for us,” coach Jason Kidd said, explaining his team’s woes in the fourth quarter. “We had some great looks there — some wide-open three — and we didn’t convert some layups.
“You look at the defense, sometimes you can relax with a big lead. So just understanding the Pelicans are a good team, they’re fighting to break their losing streak. Give them credit – they kept playing. I thought that we settled on a lot of jump shots there.”
Dallas took a 95-76 lead into the fourth quarter, but the game got extremely uncomfortable when Ingram popped in a bucket and Herbert Jones blocked Dinwiddie’s shot, then galloped up the floor and scored to draw the Pelicans to within 108-104 of the Mavs with 58.4 seconds left.
“We slacked off and didn’t play defense. They were playing defense.”
Reggie Bullock split a pair of free throws to pad the Mavs’ lead to 109-104 with 16 seconds remaining. Ingram then made it a one-possession game (109-106) when he dropped in a jumper with 9.3 seconds remaining. From there, the Mavs were able to breathe a sign of relief when Dinwiddie iced the game with two charity tosses with 2.4 seconds left.
“They had their runs, but it should have never come down to it being a two-possession game,” Green said. “It should have never come down to that, so that’s on us.
“We’ll take the win, but we’ve got a lot to work on for sure.”
It was the 10th straight loss for the struggling Pelicans, who are without injured All-Star forward Zion Williamson. Also, the Pelicans didn’t arrive in Dallas until Thursday at 1:30 p.m., because they couldn’t get out of Denver – they played there on Tuesday — and arrive in Dallas earlier due to the inclement weather in this area.
“It’s just a part of navigating an NBA season, so weather happens and things like that,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said.
Doncic led the Mavs with 31 points, eight rebounds and two steals, Dinwiddie finished with 21 points, Green scored 15 points, and Dorian Finney-Smith collected 13 points and seven boards. The Pelicans were paced by Ingram (26 points, nine rebounds, seven assists), CJ
McCollum (19 points eight assists), Jonas Valanciunas (16 points, 13 boards), Naji Marshall (11 points) and Larry Nance Jr. (10 points, 12 rebounds).
Although last week the Mavs fared relatively well while playing 44-plus minutes against Phoenix and the entire game against Utah without an injured Doncic, they had difficulties adjusting to his absence in the second half on Thursday.
“I think it took our team a while to get used to it,” Green said. “We’re used to the ball — Luka bringing it up at a slow pace — and then they realized that, too. They obviously tried to get us to play in a way, continuously like Luka, by doubling Spencer and trying to make it a slower game when the guys we have on the court are not made for a slower game. And part of it’s my fault.
“There are definitely times when I should have gotten the ball and pushed the pace, but it’s a game of pace when Luka is not out there. We need to be able to realize that. Luka trusts us to bring the ball up, even when he’s in there. So for us, it’s about bringing a faster pace and not just playing to what we’re used to.”
Doncic did his best to jump-start the Mavs as his 21 points in the first quarter helped Dallas tote a 40-22 lead into the second quarter. That’s 
the second game in a row Doncic scored at least 20 points in the first quarter after he fired in 24 points in the opening quarter of Monday’s win over the Detroit Pistons.
The Mavs dominated until Doncic’s injury. Then came the comeback by the Pelicans, which unnerved the sellout crowd of 19,670. Kidd, though, knew his team could ill-afford to take the Pelicans lightly, even though they were without Williamson.
“I think when you look at the injuries that New Orleans is going through, we’ve gone through it,” Kidd said. “The schedule continues to keep going. No one feels sorry for you.
“When you talk about their All-Star is out, he’s a game changer. He’s hard to guard. He’s having a heckuva year, when you talk about Zion, but they still have talent over there.”
And that talent made things uneasy for the Mavs down the stretch. But with the game hanging in the balance, Green drove and successfully negotiated an up-and-under shot to pad the lead to 101-87.
Then when the Pelicans chopped the deficit to eight points, Green knifed through traffic and scored to bump the Mavs’ lead to 108-98 with two minutes remaining.
“He gets hurt, but I thought just his work ethic while he was hurt, and then just showing that he hasn’t fallen off in a sense because of the injury,” Kidd said. “He’s still able to deliver (and) make plays for us. He did that (last week) in Utah.
“And then tonight, he made two, I thought, big plays of being able to drive the ball getting in the paint and then also stepping up and shooting that three. You could see that he wasn’t afraid of the moment.”
As far as Doncic goes, Kidd said he’ll know more on Friday and if his star point guard will be able to play when the Mavs start a five-game
road trip Saturday in San Francisco against the defending world champion Golden State Warriors. The Mavs also lost forward Davis Bertans for the rest of the game in the second quarter when he strained his left calf after scoring nine points in just six minutes on three-of-three shooting from the three-point line.
Meanwhile, Green wasn’t at all pleased with the Mavs nearly blowing a 31-point lead to the Pelicans.
“It’s unacceptable, but at the end of the day we play the Warriors next game,” he said. “The more we dwell about this – we definitely need to address it. But at the same time, it’s about preparing for the next game and making sure it doesn’t happen again.
“When we’re down by 30, we play with that aggression, and I think we need to have that attitude even when we’re up by 30.”
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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