The Dallas Mavericks (2-4) figured out yet another way to lose a basketball game on Saturday, this time to the Detroit Pistons (4-2), 122-110, at Mexico City’s Arena CDMX.
Down two big men, Dallas tried
to keep up with the Pistons by firing at will from 3-point range, and it worked — until it didn’t. They tried to lean on the hot shooting of D’Angelo Russell, who came off the bench for a team-high 31 points, and it worked — until he turned the ball over three times in the fourth quarter while the Pistons made 12-of-23 from the field down the stretch.
The Mavs were outscored in the paint by a jaw-dropping 72-26 margin down Mexico way. They turned the ball over 15 times in the second half. PJ Washington and Cooper Flagg combined to shoot 6-for-27 from the field in the loss, and those three were freebies, because I have six stats that loomed even larger than those in the Mavs’ latest loss.
Without further ado, here they are:
5: First-quarter buckets at the rim for Jalen Duren
Jalen Duren’s five buckets in the first quarter put the Mavericks’ injury woes into clear focus to start the game. He connected with Arlington’s own Cade Cunningham to finish three lobs at the rim and scored in close twice more to go 5-for-5 for a game-high 10 points in the first. Fun fact — the Cunningham-to-Duren connection accounted for 60 lob finishes last season.
You’d like to be able to say it was too easy, but with the Mavs’ big, deep frontcourt wilting with injuries to Anthony Davis (calf) and Dereck Lively (knee), and with Daniel Gafford playing his first game of the year on a minutes restriction, the lane was always going to be open for business for the Pistons on this particular Saturday night.
Duren came into the game having scored 20 or more in two of the Pistons’ last three games. He scored 21 points and grabbed 13 boards in Wednesday’s 135-116 win over the Orlando Magic and had 24 and 18 in Sunday’s 119-113 win over the Boston Celtics. His two fouls in the first quarter on Saturday did a better job of slowing him down than anyone in a Mavericks uniform did early on.
The Mavericks stayed afloat despite getting outscored 20-10 in the paint in the first quarter, and Naji Marshall hit his first 3-pointer of the year with 26 seconds left in the frame to give Dallas a 30-27 lead at the end of one.
21-2: Pistons’ second-quarter run
Dallas worked that slim lead at the end of the first all the way up to nine points, up 42-33 after D’Angelo Russell’s runner in the lane with 7:47 left in the second. They did it, in part, by defending the 3-point line in the first half, as the Pistons started the game 1-of-9 from 3-point range.
But, oh, how the turntables. From that point, the Pistons embarked on a 21-2 run to retake control of the game, albeit only briefly. They scored the first few from the free throw line, until Cunningham found Javonte Green cutting through the lane for his sixth assist of the first half for an easy bucket that brought Detroit to within 42-40 with 6:39 left in the second. Duren continued his perfect night from the field to that point by scoring on a 3-point play inside and another putback jam that gave the Pistons a 47-44 lead with 4:34 left before halftime.
Ausar Thompson nailed a corner 3-pointer, just Detroit’s second on the night from distance, with 3:23 left in the second to increase the Pistons’ lead to 54-44.
17-3: Dallas’ run in response
Then things see-sawed back in Dallas’ favor for the final three minutes of the first half. The Mavs responded with a 17-3 run of their own to retake the lead going into the break. Flagg and Brandon Williams combined to fuel the Mavericks with 14 of the team’s final 17 points of the first half.
Williams hit two 3-pointers during the run, and Flagg broke out of his cold spell from the field with a big 3-ball of his own that brought the Mavericks to within one, down 57-56 with 1:12 left in the half. Flagg led Dallas with 10 points and five rebounds in the first half but shot just 2-of-8 to get there.
The Dallas defense limited Cunningham to just eight points in the first half. Duren led the Pistons with 17 points at the break and was on the bench for most of the Mavericks’ 17-3 run.
10: Mavericks’ first-half 3-pointers
Dallas came into Saturday’s game averaging just over nine 3-point makes on just over 28 attempts per game in games played in the United States. All it took was a trip south of the border for the spice level to go up from behind the 3-point line, apparently.
Dallas made 10-of-27 (37%) from 3-point territory in the first half against the Pistons. Flagg, Russell, Kormac Karl “Max’ Christie and Klay Thompson combined to shoot 8-of-18 from beyond the arc in the first half. The rest of the team made just 2-of-9, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers from 3-point range with this team. We’ll certainly take it.
13: Third-quarter points from D’Angelo Russell
Russell caught fire in the third quarter, and the Mavs needed every one of the 13 points he scored in the frame. He went 4-for-5 from the floor and hit two of his three attempts from distance coming out of halftime, while the lead changed hands six times in the third.
Russell connected with Gafford on an alley-oop with 2:10 left in the third to give the Mavs back an 86-85 lead, then Flagg found Russell open on the wing a minute later for his fourth 3-ball of the game to extend that lead to 90-85 with a little over a minute left in the frame.
He would hit two more early in the fourth quarter to help keep the Mavs’ heads above water against the Piston’s oncoming late charge.
18/1: Cade Cunningham’s assist-to-turnover ratio
But here’s the game in a nutshell. While Detroit features a cerebral point guard capable of manufacturing an absurd 18-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and winning plays down the stretch, the Mavs’ best hope at the moment making ball-handling decisions is a guy who passes the ball to one of two Detroit Pistons who overload the dribble-hand-off instead of regrouping or finding a cutter. A guy who drags an ill-fated wraparound pass long and out of bounds to a cutting Daniel Gafford two minutes later. A guy who turns it over three times in the fourth quarter to sink the Mavs’ chances even as he sinks heat-check 3-pointer after heat-check 3-pointer.
I’m talking, of course, about the vastly different fourth-quarter profiles of Cunningham and Russell. Cunningham showed why he is a winning piece as the game wound down against the Mavericks, and Russell, even while canning his fifth, sixth and seventh 3-balls of the night in the fourth, showed why he’s never materialized into anything close to it.
The Mavs shot 4-of-16 in the fourth quarter to kill their chances at maintaining the lead they clung to with nine minutes left to play. Duren finished with a career-high 33 points on a ridiculous 13-of-16 shooting night to go along with 11 boards. Cunningham nailed a late 3-pointer to finish with 21 points to go with those 18 assists. He now holds an incredible 28-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio over his last two games.
