Dallas overwhelms a depleted Orlando team
The Dallas Mavericks throttled the Orlando Magic 108-85 Sunday night in Dallas. It was Mavericks biggest win of the season by margin of victory, and a good palate cleanser after the ugly loss to the Rockets on Thursday night.
Luka Doncic led all scorers with 32 points, pouring in 25 of those in the first half to make this a blowout early in the second quarter. After another slow start, the Mavericks defense completely suffocated the Magic offense toward the end of the first quarter, and from there the Mavericks were off the races, securing rebounds and getting out in transition.
Orlando was missing leading scorer Paolo Banchero, who is out with a torn right oblique, and it showed early. The Magic offense was rudderless, as the Mavericks swarmed the paint and dared the Magic to beat them with three point shooting. The Magic shot 19.5 percent from three (8-of-41), and never really threatened the Mavericks defense at any point of the game.
Besides Doncic’s brilliance, it was a well-rounded performance from the roster. Daniel Gafford finished with 18 points and eight rebounds in only 20 minutes, Naji Marshall had five rebounds, five assists, and two steals off the bench, Dereck Lively had a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) in 20 minutes off the bench, and was a monster defensively for every one of those minutes.
With Dallas nursing a 23-point lead for all of the second half, all key players got to rest for most of the fourth quarter. That’s crucial, as Dallas plays again tomorrow night against the lightning quick Indiana Pacers. Here are our main thoughts from the game.
Dallas did its job to play faster
A big reason for the loss to the Rockets on Thursday was the Mavericks lack of rebounding, allowing Houston to get 18 offensive rebounds. Whatever message was sent in the two days off following the loss was received loud and clear against Orlando on Sunday — the Mavericks outrebounded the Magic 53-43, and only allowed 13 offensive rebounds.
While allowing double-digit offensive rebounds again doesn’t sound great, consider the Magic missed a staggering 62 shots tonight. In the first half alone, Orlando missed 32 shots and had only six offensive rebounds. Getting stops and securing the rebound allowed Dallas to fly in transition and play faster, outscoring the Magic 19-12 in fastbreak points, with all 19 of those points coming in the first half. Coach Jason Kidd made it a point of emphasis in his media availability before this game that he wanted the team to play faster, and it’s impossible to play faster without finishing defensive possessions and forcing turnovers. In addition to locking up the boards, the Mavericks also had seven steals, praying against Orlando’s inability to run any good offense without its leading scorer.
Luka Doncic wakes up
The Mavericks best player hasn’t enjoyed a clean start to the season, likely due to missing the entire preseason with a calf injury suffered in the opening days of training camp. Doncic looked rusty, with his shot abandoning him in the Mavericks first five games. That changed tonight against Orlando.
Doncic scored 14 points in the first quarter, the most he’s scored in any opening period this season, part of a larger 25-point first half that gave Dallas a comfortable 15-point lead at halftime. Doncic did most of his damage early behind the three-point line — five of his nine made first half field goals were threes. Doncic was 14-of-48 (29.2 percent) on threes entering tonight, and he finished 5-of-13 against the Magic. The final percentage doesn’t look great, but Doncic was 5-of-10 in the first half and his shot wasn’t really needed after that.
The offense keeps the ball moving
Offensively the Mavericks didn’t change too much from their normal halfcourt sets — still lots of pick and roll, and lots of one-on-one play from Doncic and Kyrie Irving. But getting stops, causing turnovers, and forcing the Magic’s defense to be on its heels at least let the Mavericks get the ball moving and break up some stagnation — Dallas had 25 assists on 42 made field goals.
The Mavericks had six players finish with at least two or more assists, and Naji Marshall had five assists alone off the bench. Klay Thompson wasn’t able to shake free from three, but used the extra defensive attention to set up his teammates, finishing with four assists and would have had five if Dereck Lively didn’t get hacked at the rim after a nice feed from Thompson coming off a screen.
There is still a lot of work to do for the Mavericks halfcourt offense, and they need to keep weaning themselves off of watching Doncic and Irving work with the ball. Tonight took baby steps in helping that, mainly fueled by the transition offense. The Mavericks have been slowly reshaping their roster with more players that can dribble and pass, to be less reliant on their star duos brilliance tonight showed off a clear vision of that plan — even if Doncic was great with 32 points.