Dallas thumps a bad Sacramento team to get a chance for the eighth seed on Friday.
The Dallas Mavericks advance in the Play-In tournament after a 120-106 win against the Sacramento Kings Wednesday night in Sacramento.
Anthony Davis led the Mavericks with 27 points, nine rebounds, and three blocks. Klay Thompson had a masterful game with 23 points and five made three pointers. The Mavericks will now play Memphis on the road Friday to determine the eighth seed. If the Mavericks win, they’ll face the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs. If they lose, their season is over.
This was a strange game, if only because of how it was basically won in the second quarter. Dallas started the game slightly uneven, with Anthony Davis taking and missing a lot of jumpers and the Kings making some early threes. The Kings only led by two at 29-27 to end the frame.
In the second, Dallas went nuts. Klay Thompson scored 16 points in the frame, making four three pointers. In a three minute stretch from around the eight minute mark to the five minute mark, Thompson made four 3-pointers. It turned a 35-32 Mavericks lead to 53-39 and Dallas never looked back.
The Mavericks didn’t overwhelm the Kings in the second half, but the Kings never seriously challenged thanks to contributions from all over the roster. Brandon Williams was great, Naji Marshall was effective, and the defense was swarming around the basket. The Kings best player, Domantas Sabonis, was invisible all night while flanked by Davis, Daniel Gafford, and Dereck Lively. Sabonis only had 11 points on 5-of-13 shooting.
Dallas’ fourth quarter wasn’t anything to write home about, but the defense remained consistent. The Kings got nothing at the rim, Davis made a few jumpers, and Daniel Gafford had a nasty poster against Sabonis with five minutes left to extend the Mavericks lead back past 20. Kings fans started to head for the exit at that point and the Mavericks cruised to the end.
Here’s what we noticed.
This was a woeful mismatch from the jump
Even though the Kings are the higher seed, this game never felt all that close. Dallas, with this amount of roster health, just counters everything the Kings want to do. Sacramento doesn’t shoot a lot of threes and like to shoot a lot of midrange jumpers. Dallas walled off the paint, and their length meant they could challenge those midrange jumpers without worrying about their backline or corner shooters. The Kings had no answer.
Sacramento only had 40 points in the paint and while they went a solid 13-of-33 from three, most of those makes came in garbage time. Offensively the Mavericks were crisp, outside of Davis’ strange desire to shoot as many jumpers as he could. The Kings defensively tried to really pressure the Mavericks guards, I guess because without Kyrie Irving they did not think Dallas could hold up. But the Mavericks did and easily beat the first line of defense and got into the paint at will. Sacramento has little rim protection from their bigs, and the Mavericks just picked them apart whether it was a finish at the rim or finding shooters in the corner.
Really impressive effort all the way around. Jason Kidd coached a hell of a game too.
Klay Thompson gets his Play-In revenge
Last year Klay Thompson ended his Warriors tenure with a Play-In loss to the Kings where he infamously shot 0-for-10 from the floor. Let’s just say Thompson had that memory fresh in his mind Wednesday night back in Sacramento.
Thompson had 16 points and four made three pointers in the second quarter alone, igniting a massive Mavericks run that led to the 44-19 frame that basically ended the game before halftime. Thompson finished with 23 points on 11 shots. Thompson was very demonstative throughout the night, so you know he had that awful showing from last year in his head all night.
After his final bucket in the fourth quarter, Thompson antagonized what was left of the Kings crowd with some hand-having celebration and a big smile on his face. Good for Klay! This was a fun game for him.
Brandon Williams matters
Dallas desperately missed two-way guard Brandon Williams when he ran out of NBA eligibility right before the regular season ended. Tonight was the ultimate proof.
With a new NBA contract signed right before the season ended when the Mavericks finally had the cap room to do it, Williams showed out with 17 points off the bench, going 3-of-4 from three and having five assists with zero turnovers. It was notable that Williams and guard Dante Exum were the backup guards tonight, as Spencer Dinwiddie was benched — he only played two garbage time minutes at the end of the game.
This was a big decision by Jason Kidd but it was the right one. Dinwiddie was scuffling down the stretch, with his defense wanning and his offensive production a little too ball dominant. Williams, despite his age and experience, has so much zip and pop in his pick and roll game and the ball seems to fly around the floor more when he’s on the court as opposed to Dinwiddie. Williams had a really nice split through a double-team when the Kings tried to trap him in the pick and roll and made a picture-perfect pass to the corner, but the Mavericks player missed the shot. That play won’t show up in the state sheet for Williams, but it was emblematic of the type of dynamism and playmaking he’s thrust a Mavericks rotation that sorely needs it without Kyrie Irving.