3 things to watch as the Mavericks meet the Kings

SB Nation

The Dallas Mavericks (13-23) return to the road and attempt to continue their return to winning Tuesday against the Sacramento Kings (8-28) with a 10pm CST tipoff at Golden One Center. Dallas halted a four-game

skid Saturday with an upset win against the Houston Rockets, 110-104. The Kings’ 115-98 loss Sunday to the Milwaukee Bucks extended their brutal losing streak to five; the game featured the return of guard Zach LaVine from an ankle injury but also the departure of guard Keon Ellis with a thumb injury.

Best laid plans

Though LaVine’s return marks some long-awaited good news, Sacramento’s plans this season were dashed when stars LaVine and Domantas Sabonis went down with injuries, leaving a very odd mix of nonetheless talented players to attempt to hold things down. The Kings present the same wounded-animal danger that they did in these teams’ most recent clash Dec. 27, a 113-107 Kings victory in which a Mavericks team missing Anthony Davis coughed up 21 turnovers in a weird Saturday matinee matchup. Sacramento has yet to win since.

Led by veterans like Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk, and Dennis Schröder, a pair of skilled role players entering their prime in Keegan Murray and Keon Ellis, and intriguing rookie big man Maxime Raynaud, this group was assembled to form a supporting cast for LaVine and Sabonis, and it’s easy to imagine a healthy version of this roster being a very tough out. For long stretches of games, they often are; besides holding a double digit lead for much of the game against Dallas, they took a tie with Boston into the fourth quarter Thursday before being doomed by an 0-10 shooting performance from three in the final frame. The following night they managed a scrappy back and forth first half against the Suns before hitting the wall.

Deep trouble

On both ends, the Kings are undone at the three-point line. One big drawback to losing their best perimeter and floor-stretching three-point threats to injury is an offense with load-bearing roles being played by historically iffy deep threats. Westbrook, a career .307 three-point shooter, is having one of the better long-range shooting seasons of his career at .353 as he finds himself open on the corners. Murray, shooting .281 this year from downtown, still can get hot, as he did in making three of five against the Suns and three of four in a win against the Rockets Dec. 21, but like Westbrook does not draw defenders out. DeRozan has turned himself into a fairly accurate three-point shooter late in his career but only attempts 2.2 per game.

Their chemistry is patchwork but the Kings have players who can score. Schröder and Ellis, two players with very different resumes, share a proclivity for three-level scoring and boldness with their shot selection. The careful craftsman DeRozan, one of the game’s last ambassadors for the isolation and midrange style of play that defined multiple generations of scoring guards, is 23 of 25 from the free throw line over his last five games. Raynaud, a very nice finisher at the rim, has used his growing role to become a steady double-double threat, an achievement made more impressive by the lack of spacing around him. He went 9-15 against the Mavericks but didn’t do much against the Suns’ big lineups. Even the defensive specialist Murray, who did not play against Dallas Dec. 27, can go off as he did when he went for 23 against the Suns.

The deep ball makes the difference between victory and defeat on the defensive side for Sacramento too. Over this five-game losing streak, the Kings have cumulatively shot 44-125 from deep while allowing 64-185, getting taxed beyond the arc by the Lakers’ Nick Smith Jr, (5-10), the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard (5-9), and the Celtics’ Sam Hauser (5-7), as well as at the rim, where Lebron James, the Suns’ Devin Booker, and the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokuonmpo have cut through the exhausted Sacramento defense like paper.

The Mavericks and Kings, the league’s 29th and 30th ranked teams in terms of three-point shots made this season, lit it up last time they played. Cooper Flagg, Max Christie, and Klay Thompson all cooked from long range, making a combined 9 of 16. The Kings also shot an uncharacteristically high 17 for 38 from deep in that game, a rare one in which they had more than a league-average number of attempts from there (former Maverick Doug McDermott made three of his six). LaVine, who connected on two of four three-pointers against the Bucks Sunday, should bring the Kings more balance.

Big steps

The availability of P.J. Washington, who left early in the second quarter against Houston with an ankle injury, influences how much size the Mavericks can counter the Kings with. Washington was key to finally slowing Raynaud in the third quarter Dec. 27 but Davis and Daniel Gafford give the Mavericks more looks this time. If Washington does not play, expect to see more of Naji Marshall, who stepped up against the Rockets. Head coach Jason Kidd threw the kitchen sink at the Kings last time, trying every available player off the bench in defeat.

Tuesday’s game is the first in a three-game road trip for the Mavericks, who play Utah Thursday and Chicago Saturday. For a team with more time between wins than the players would prefer, Tuesday brings a rare shot at an opponent with a worse record. Of course, that’s been no guarantor of success for Dallas so far this season.