Mavericks Score Back-To-Back Blowout Wins At Home

Final. 108. 38. 121. 79

The Dallas Mavericks still don’t look like a good defensive team, but their offensive is prolific in second-straight blowout victory during long home stand.

Watching little-used Dallas Mavericks reserves like center Salah Mejri, Dwight Powell and rookie Justin Anderson mop up blowout wins in the fourth quarter at American Airlines Center is becoming a tradition.

For the second-straight game, the Mavericks offense exploded, this time in a 121-108 win over the Orlando Magic in a game that avenged a disappointing overtime defeat last month in Florida.

Dallas suffered from a familiar slow start, which was accompanied by too many points given up in the paint. Nonetheless, the Mavericks still righted the ship early enough to chalk up 34 points on 61.9-percent shooting in the opening period to serve notice that last month’s loss to Orlando wasn’t lingering in the minds of a Dallas team that needs a good winning streak heading into the home stretch of the regular season.

Five Mavericks players reached double figures in scoring, but even better than that was the fact that three of those five scored 17 points while two others scored even more.

Wesley Matthews led all Dallas scorers with 21 points and Dirk Nowitzki dropped 19. J.J. Barea was huge off the bench as one of the three with 17 points as Mavs reserves were badly outscored by Orlando’s bench 63-40.

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The Mavs were out-rebounded again, but Dallas managed to outscore Orlando in the paint, something that didn’t look likely in the opening minutes of the contest.

Despite the rebounding shortage, Zaza Pachulia picked up his 24th double-double of the season with his 17 points and 10 rebounds.

Had Dallas scored just one more point in the fourth period, it would have marked 10-consecutive quarters that the Mavericks had scored 26 points or better, a clear sign that the offense is clicking better and better as crunch time nears. According to Mavs.com contributor Bobby Karalla, Dallas actually has the highest rated offense in the NBA since the All-Star break, certainly a product of an easy schedule since that time, but impressive nonetheless.

The addition of David Lee seems to have added some juice to this team, both offensively and defensively. Upon entering Tuesday night’s game in the first quarter, the Mavericks went on an immediate 9-0 run, which enabled the team to grab a lead and start pulling away for good. Lee’s two dunks right off the bat contributed to that blistering hot shooting that took off early and never seemed to let up.

With one more home game remaining on what began as a critical six-game stretch at AAC, the Mavericks have the chance to finish 5-1 with only a single loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sacramento Kings arrive in DFW for a Thursday night matchup before the remainder of March kicks in, and this will not be a cakewalk.

Before April Fool’s Day, Dallas plays Western Conference top-seed Golden State twice and Eastern Conference top-seed Cleveland Cavaliers once. There’s two games against the seventh-seeded Portland Trail Blazers and also a game against the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers as well.

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There’s no time or reasons for any celebrations because the Mavericks, despite the recent offensive heroics, still have much to prove, like whether or not they can beat one of the Western Conference’s top three teams – they were swept by the third-seeded Thunder already.

Either way, the wait won’t be long before Mavs Nation knows exactly what kind of team this will end up being.

Published on 03/02/2016 at 13:01 PM
Last updated at 03/02/2016 at 04:48 AM

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