A promising start devolved into a familiar nightmare on Friday for the Dallas Mavericks (8-16) in a 132-111 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder (22-1) at Paycom Center. The Thunder defense clamped down on both Cooper Flagg and Anthony Davis to extend Oklahoma City’s win streak to 14 and put the kibosh on the Mavs’ three-game win streak in the process.
Friday night’s game against the Thunder was always going to be a different kind of test, but Dallas failed to learn from their second-quarter mistakes
and folded in the third as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shot 10-of-12 from the field and took the fourth quarter off while the Thunder rolled over a Mavs team that was just never equipped to keep up.
Here are four stats that paint the picture of a loss that was, in retrospect, inevitable.
7-of-11: Mavericks’ shooting start
Could the Mavericks possibly do the unthinkable and pull off the massive upset in Oklahoma City? They made their case to start the game. Dallas hit seven of their first 11 shot attempts in the first six minutes at the Thunder. Ryan Nembhard rose up for a 3-pointer from the right corner off Flagg’s drive-and-desperation-dish to set the tone. He pulled up for a contested mid-range jumper from Naji Marshall to give the Mavs an 11-9 lead just four minutes into the game before finding Flagg on a back cut for a tall alley-oop a minute and change later.
The game got downright swampy when the second string came in to give the Mavs’ starters a breath, but Dallas weathered the storm by forcing four turnovers in the game’s first eight minutes. Brandon Williams got hot late in the first quarter, scoring a team-high seven points off the bench in the frame, before D’Angelo Russell stepped back for a 3-ball with two seconds left in the first to knot the game at 27-27.
Dallas shot 11-of-22 (50%) from the field and 3-of-10 (30%) from 3-point range to keep their heads above water after one.
2-of-10: Combined first-half shooting for Cooper Flagg and Anthony Davis
The Thunder methodically took control of the game in the second quarter, as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored seven of his nine points in the frame at the free-throw line. He led all scorers with 17 points as the Thunder took a 63-48 lead into the break.
Meanwhile, Flagg and Davis found it much harder to manufacture offense for the Mavs. Flagg shot just 2-of-6 from the field and missed both his 3-point attempts. Flagg was at least aggressive going to the basket, going 6-of-6 at the line, even as he hesitated to shoot from the outside a couple of times after those first two misses. Davis only shot the ball four times in the first half, missing all four of those attempts and looking borderline soft at times in the process. His putback attempt on the Mavericks’ last possession of the first half was swatted away by Chet Holmgren and Dallas tucked their tails going into halftime, all of a sudden down by 15 points.
The Thunder went on a 20-8 scoring run over the last 5:20 of the second quarter to put the Mavs in their place. The rest of the Mavericks shot 15-of-30 from the floor in the first half.
Flagg and Davis both missed their first attempts of the second half, while Cason Wallace nailed a corner 3-pointer and Gilgeous-Alexander made two more at the line to extend the Oklahoma lead to 20 early in the third.
95: Consecutive games with 20-plus points for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
After hitting those two free throws early in the third to put him at 19 points, Gilgeous-Alexander diced through the lane and scored on a scooping lay-in to give the Thunder a 72-50 lead and bring his streak of consecutive games scoring 20 or more points to 95. He was getting everything he wanted against the Mavericks’ defense, which came into the game fifth in the NBA in defensive rating (111.5).
Wilt Chamberlain holds the all-time record for consecutive games of 20-plus points. He scored 20 or more in 126 straight from October 1961 through January 1963, so Gilgeous Alexander still needs 31 more in a row to move from second to first all-time with his ongoing streak.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored 16 of his game-high 33 points in the third quarter as the Thunder outscored the Mavs 41-26 out of halftime. He grabbed five rebounds, dished six assists and sat the entire fourth quarter for the 12th time this season. It’s ridiculous how good Oklahoma City is.
23: Garbage-time points from Jaden Hardy
Like clockwork, Jaden Hardy had it stuck on automatic for the Mavs with the outcome of the game already decided. He poured in 12 points in the last 5:45 of the third quarter, after the Thunder had already extended their lead to 30 points. Hardy pulled up for jumpers on back-to-back possessions late in the third to cut that lead to 94-70, but the damage had already been done.
Flagg finished the game with a halfway respectable 16 points on 5-of-11 shooting. Davis (1-of-9 shooting) finally connected on his first field goal of the game with 7:40 left to play. Hardy led the Mavericks with 23 points in the loss on 8-of-13 (5-of-9 from 3-point range) shooting, while Marshall chipped in 18 more.
