Mavericks Lose Another to Golden State Warriors
The Dallas Mavericks came as prepared as they could to upset the Golden State Warriors, but ended up falling 130-112 at American Airlines Center.
For as bad as the Dallas Mavericks needed a win on Friday night against the Golden State Warriors, one of the best efforts of the season wasn’t enough to hold off a defending NBA champion that really has no equal.
Depending on your take on the game of basketball, you could either classify the Warriors as fantastic or ridiculous – both are correct.
How exactly do you defend a team with two guards that can launch basketballs from 30-plus feet away from the rim and actually hit those shots with alarming regularity? What do you make of Stephen Curry hitting a corner three-point shot that slides off the glass on still goes in?
Call it what you will, but know that once this Golden State flame dies, which it will, you’ll never see anything else like it for hundreds of years. In fact, the sun could explode before anything like this happens again. Champions are always copied, but this is an act that will never have any viable imitators.
The Warriors, led by Klay Thompson‘s 10 3-point shots, hit a total of 22 shots beyond the arc against the Mavericks. Curry was right behind Thompson with 31 points on 6-12 shooting from long range, a mere average night for the reigning league MVP.
The final score of 130-112 has to have left Mavericks fans wondering what the true value of making the playoffs really is. Can you imagine a quick four-game series against this gimmick in the postseason?
It mattered not that Chandler Parsons left the game in the third quarter with a hamstring situation that puts his immediate availability in doubt. Dirk Nowitzki‘s 24 points weren’t even close to being enough to push Dallas over the hump, although the Mavericks did manage to stay in this game up until the fourth quarter. In fact, the Mavs led most of the first quarter while shooting a red-hot 56-percent shooting to start things off – but the Warriors were white-hot in shooting 61.5-percent, which included nine three-point shots and resulted in a 42-36 lead after one period.
Not to be overlooked, however, was an outstanding performance by David Lee, who came off the bench with 16 points and 16 rebounds – this guy’s a keeper no matter how you slice it.
Yes, a very good effort, although a four-minute drought scoring late in the third quarter didn’t help matter. Four points over that stretch still had the Mavericks within striking distance, thanks mostly to Golden State’s abysmal 21-point quarter – for them that’s just horrific. The Mavericks needed to be putting this team away at that point, but probably lost the game because of that stretch.
There’s no doubt that the starting lineup excluding center Zaza Pachulia is the way to go for Dallas. This team starts faster and simply plays better offense and defense. Despite the final score against the Warriors, things didn’t come as easily as it might have seemed for the Dubs.
Nonetheless, the Mavericks have now fallen below .500 and are definitely on the ropes where the Western Conference playoffs are concerned. After victories by both seventh-seed Houston Rockets and sixth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers on Friday evening, the Mavericks have sole possession of the final seed in the west by just a half game above a surging Utah Jazz club that’s corrected itself en route to a four-game winning streak.
It’s quite likely that the season will be determined for Dallas following the next three games, the first two being home-and-away against the Trail Blazers and then against the Warriors – again – in Oakland.
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Dallas gets Saturday off to figure things out before meeting the ‘Blazers at American Airlines Center on Sunday afternoon. Depending on how that contest goes, the Mavericks may need to put it all out on the table again next Wednesday in Portland in a game that won’t be do-or-die, but it might very well be awfully close to that affect.