After an unexpected week after the disastrous Texas weather, the Dallas Mavericks led wire-to-wire against the Memphis Grizzlies, 102-92. Tim Hardaway Jr. was the highlight man in Dallas and scored 29 off the bench. Yes Morant led the Grizzlies in a 22-point defeat.
Both teams fell asleep to start the opening quarter, with Josh Richardson as the only player for any team to play with any zipper. He threw three deep tries into the frame and started with a Dallas offense that looks like a week’s exception. However, the Grizzlies simply could not score before their banking unit entered the game. Hardaway provided the necessary spark from the bench, hitting two tries and laying a ride off the bench. Luka Doncic was down the entire quarter, and he had all of his shots, but one, missed, with all four of the free throws. With these problems aside, the Mavericks still lead 26-13 after one game.
One would expect Memphis to find a rhythm in the second quarter after Tyus Jones and the wave drivers caused the Grizzlies to break in the first quarter. That would be a wrong assumption. Jalen Brunson led the Mavericks and scored in the frame in various ways, and Hardaway kept throwing flames while the Mavericks extended their lead to as many as 23 in the second quarter. Doncic continued to look slow, but for the first time in recent memory it did not matter. The Mavericks once had a 20-0 lead over Memphis, which helped them take a 54-36 lead.
Doncic took control early in the third time, coming to the edge and hitting a soft driver. The Grizzlies simply had no reaction and seemed to be running in the sand for much of the frame. Aside from a few exciting finishes by Morant, Memphis offered very little. This enabled Dallas to feast on the transition and turnover. The Mavericks actually cooled off considerably during the quarter, but Memphis could not take the lead at all. After three quarters, Dallas led 81-62.
The Mavericks simply held out the rest of the game. The final framework was apparently a workshop for Doncic to find his shot as he finally connected a few tries in the first minutes. The Mavericks went up a bit in the final six minutes of the quarter, lowering their lead from 18-20 points to 15 and then 12. Dallas managed to retain a double-digit victory, but did not the enthusiastic fashion. All things considered, a win is a win and the Mavericks walked away with a 102-92 victory.
Now, some thoughts
Defense leads to offense
This is one of the oldest rules in basketball and the Dallas Mavericks rediscovered their early season active hands for the game against the Grizzlies. Dallas punished the Grizzlies both in quick break points (24-2) but also in points of turnover (19-12). Although the Mavericks have a 12th place in the league in quick breakdown points, they are the last place in points of their turnover.
Dallas was still pretty weak at the edge, but without Kristaps Porzingis, Willie Cauley-Stein is the closest player in the rankings to having a shot blocker. Dallas did a lot of better work on the boards, getting bodies on Memphis players and despite the poor Grizzly shooting performance not destroying on the attacking glass.
Josh Richardson, pacemaker
Richardson finished with 17 points and seven rebounds to go along with three assists and a pair of steals. But his big first quarter, where he had 10 points and five rebounds, really got Dallas going in a quarter where they got a little stuck in the mud.
Our very own Josh, Josh Bowe, pointed out on Twitter earlier today that Richardson is experiencing a pretty offensive season once you look past his three-point shooting (which also tends to!).
if josh richardson could only shoot the league average (or even just a worse point) of three, he would have had a very good offensive season so far. pic.twitter.com/nBp9JH2IJB
Josh Bowe (@ Boweman55) 22 February 2021
It’s good to see Richardson making a difference for this Dallas team. For now, we’ll ignore his team’s five highest turnover.
Bank score
This is by no means a new trend, but it was good to see the Maverick bench continue to score with ease. Jalen Brunson was arguably the second best Dallas player this season and easily the second most consistent. He answered the clock again Monday night, scoring 19 points on a hyper-efficient 7-of-11 point off the floor to pass along with seven rebounds and three assistants. Then Tim Hardaway Jr. stayed. still the true x-factor, scoring 29 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including a red-gloss 7 of 11 from downtown. I believe Dallas is now 6-1 when Hardaway scores 20 points or more. 48 points from two players off the bench makes the team hard to beat.