The Dallas Mavericks played their second NBA In-Season Tournament Friday night, blowing out the Los Angeles Clippers in Dallas, 144-126. Dallas fell behind early as James Harden and Kahwi Leonard picked apart the Mavericksā defense, but the Mavs used a definitive 35-4 run spanning the first and second quarters to seize control of the game and never looked back.
Dallas is now 1-1 in tournament play. They lost their first tournament game to the Denver Nuggets, 125-114, on November 3. The win over the Clippers brought the Mavericksā tournament point differential, used to determine tiebreakers, to plus-four. Despite the win, not everything went smoothly in Dallasā first in-season tournament game at home.
ESPN reported Friday afternoon that the Mavericks wouldnāt debut their special in-season tournament court during the game because of manufacturing errors and defects. The teams instead played on Dallasā core court, which is used for most home games.
āIt didnāt meet the league standard, so we canāt play on it,ā Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said of the tournament court before the game. āIt happens. Weāve got plenty of courts, so we got one to play on.ā
The lack of a special court caused some confusion before the game. After the game, Mavericks All-Star guard Kyrie Irving admitted that he didnāt know it was an in-season tournament game.
āTo be honest with you, this is probably my lack of awareness showing right now, but even in that shootaround, I didn’t know it was an in-season tournament game cause I was so used to seeing the court be split in three,ā Irving said. āThe excitement, I didn’t feel it rising, but coming into the game, it did feel like an in-season tournament game, and it meant something, and you could tell the Clippers knew what was at stake. We knew what was at stake.ā
Irving wasnāt the only one who showed some passivity to the tournament aspect of the game. When asked about the tournament win after the game, Dallas star Luka Doncic acknowledged the victory before discussing the teamās overall start to the season.
āWe donāt have many games for this In-Season Tournament, so itās good that we got to pull this one out,ā Doncic said. āEvery game matters, and obviously we have a lot of [regular season] games, but I think our start [to the season] has been great.ā
Even without the court and the matter-of-fact approach to the in-season tournament, the Mavericks are happy with the game’s outcome. The win brings their regular season record to 7-2, the second-best record in the Western Conference.
“I think it was a great bounce-back game. I thought the guys, again, executed the game plan. I thought everybody participated, but I thought Luka set the tone and Kai ā those two set the tone tonight, and the guys followed.”