DALLAS — Somewhere in the third quarter, I recognized that I had been wrong, that the Mavericks, in fact, were not going to win a game in this series against Utah without Luka Doncic. For all their hard work to replace him, their impressive resolve at the defensive end, it’s just too hard to overcome a superstar deficiency in the NBA playoffs.
It happened in the third quarter in Saturday’s 99-93 Utah victory at American Airlines Center, because that’s when Donovan Mitchell took over the basketball game. For most of the quarter, he outscored Dallas. Ultimately, the Mavs scored 22 points in the period while Mitchell had 19 of Utah’s 28. But, it was a big reminder — the only reminder on a day where the Mavericks mostly kept Mitchell under control — that a superstar can carry a team through the tough moments or through a quarter or a half and that it’s just going to be too hard for Dallas to score in this series until their best player returns.
Doncic scored 26 percent of the Mavericks’ points per game this season but he had 30 percent of the team’s assists. With Luka dribbling the ball, good things were right around the corner.
No one knows when his return could happen. So after the Game 1 loss, the Mavericks did their best to signal that they had almost won, that while this was not a moral victory it was perhaps a stepping stone to a win here Monday when play resumes and Dallas almost certainly will be without the injured Doncic again.
“Our defense gave us a chance to win the game,’’ head coach Jason Kidd said. “They didn’t score 100 points and in today’s basketball, that gives you a great chance to win. We just didn’t have enough offensive firepower.’’
That does not mean that Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie failed to fire away in Luka’s absence. They took 39 shots from the floor, 22 more from the foul line. Had they been more efficient from 3-point range (1 for 7) or with their free throws (15 for 22), the game might have at least gone to the final possession.
“If anything, this should have been encouraging for the fanbase,’’ Dinwiddie said.
Basketball lends itself, statistically, to being viewed through the prism of a single team. If we hadn’t done this, this and this, we would have won the game…
And yet it’s difficult for me to see the Mavericks’ chances improving here Monday night. Mitchell, despite the big third quarter, had a mostly pedestrian shooting night (10 for 29 from the field) on the way to 32 points. I can’t imagine him having another two-point first half. I can’t imagine Utah going against the Mavs’ undersized lineup and failing to get the ball inside to the game’s most efficient 2-point shooter, Rudy Gobert. He made 71% of his attempts this season and went 0 for 1 in 35 minutes Saturday.
But, it’s not hard for me to see Utah again crushing Dallas on the boards. The Jazz earned a 53-34 advantage there Saturday which is something that will continue to happen as long as the Mavericks are focused on spreading the floor on offense and pulling Gobert and his 17 rebounds and three blocks away from the rim. When Dallas shoots and misses, the ball is going the other direction.
“If we can outrebound teams by [almost] 20 rebounds,’’ Jazz coach Quin Snyder said, “at some point people are going to think a little harder about going small.’’
Since the trade of Kristaps Porzingis to Washington brought Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans to Dallas, the Mavericks have been left with little choice but to play smaller lineups. They aren’t likely to give Boban Marjanovic real minutes in this series and even Dwight Powell only logged 22 as they tried in vain to get enough 3-point shooters onto the floor to win the game from long range.
It didn’t happen. Dallas was 9 for 32 on 3s and Utah, which didn’t make one in the game’s first 20 minutes, was 7 for 22.
“We didn’t get a lot of threes but that’s because we were on the rim,’’ Snyder said.
The Jazz are attacking Dallas with their size and with their temporary advantage at the superstar position. I don’t think under normal circumstances Mitchell is quite the player Doncic is although he has shot his team into the second round several times. This was supposed to be the year Luka did likewise in Dallas, and it still could be, but his calf strain can’t keep him out of action for long or there simply won’t be any action left.
Despite the noon start and the significant missing person confined to the Dallas bench, the home crowd was ready to roar Saturday. The opportunities were limited. The Mavericks played with courage at both ends and a specific purpose at the defensive end. But they’ve got to find more points and they’ve got to know not so much who is shooting but who is confidently directing the show in the game’s crucial moments.
That won’t happen until Luka can give it a go. And no one who’s talking has any idea when or if that will happen in the next week.
