Mavericks vs. Jazz Recap: Dallas escapes Utah with 106-94 win

Mavericks vs. Jazz Recap: Dallas escapes Utah with 106-94 win

It wasn’t pretty, but the Dallas Mavericks took care of business Saturday night in Salt Lake City, defeating the Utah Jazz 106-94.

Dallas has now won seven of its last eight games after a four-game losing streak dropped the team to two games under .500 at 5-7. The Mavericks are now 12-8 and climbing to the top of the Western Conference standings – Dallas sits alone in fifth place after the win.

The Mavericks throttled the Jazz early and honestly made it seem like this was going to be a cakewalk right from the start. The Mavericks built a 20-point lead in the first quarter after getting three points from nine players, four of which came from Quintin Grimes. Dallas couldn’t miss from deep early on and led 40-22 after one quarter.

From that point on the game became muddled and ugly. The Mavericks didn’t really change their approach from the first few minutes of the game and simply continued to shoot threes without touching the paint. Defensively, the team wasn’t very connected after the first quarter and Utah got back into the game by outscoring Dallas 27-16 in the second quarter.

The Mavericks never really took the lead in the second half as the Jazz cut their lead to just three points in the third quarter. But the Mavericks’ talent advantage was crucial in getting the Jazz away. In the fourth quarter, Utah made another run to cut Dallas’ lead to five points, but Kyrie Irving then came into the game and fueled a 5-0 run – a made three-pointer and an assist in transition – the Mavericks had one double-digit lead that they held for most of the rest of the game and won by 12 points. Irving led the Mavericks and all scorers with 30 points.

We noticed this this evening.

The Mavericks looked like the Mavericks of old for one night

Dallas hasn’t needed the three-point shot since it overhauled its roster in the last 24 points and is now winning games by controlling the paint and playing defense. Tonight, however, the Mavericks of old returned as Dallas shot away from three three-pointers but didn’t do anything else particularly well.

The Mavericks made 15 three-pointers, with 39 of their 90 shot attempts being three-pointers. Dallas made six more three-pointers than the Jazz, and that 18-point lead ended up being the main difference in a 12-point win.

Quintin Grimes and Kyrie Irving combined for 11 of 15 three-pointers and 24 of 39 attempts. The hot shooting was fun to watch for a while, but after hitting nine three-pointers in the first quarter, Dallas only managed six three-pointers the rest of the game. That dry spell and lack of vigor on offense caught up with the Mavericks during that span, but the Mavericks managed just enough three-pointers to somewhat finish.

Dallas had no interest in recovering

The Jazz matched the Mavericks with 39 points of their own in three-point attempts, but they missed an incredible 30 of them and were 9 of 39 from three. That meant there were plenty of offensive rebound opportunities for the Jazz and they gobbled up 19 offensive rebounds.

Utah started tonight with a big front line with John Collins, Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler, and for one of the few times all season the Mavericks weren’t the overwhelmingly bigger team. Even though Utah played with a big lineup, it was disheartening to see the Mavericks fail to box out or block all of the Jazz’s missed three-pointers’ long rebounds.

The Jazz had an incredible 30 second chance points, the only reason it was even a game was Utah’s terrible shooting. Had the Mavericks been more physical and had a little more pressure, this could have been a great opportunity for a bigger win to rest some of the main rotation players before tomorrow’s clash in Portland.

PJ Washington’s big 3rd quarter

This was a terrible process, a game with a good result for the Mavericks tonight. The first quarter was an absolute breeze thanks to the Mavericks’ hot shooting, but from a Dallas perspective, the game felt strange from the start. The offense was flat and didn’t touch the paint, the defense didn’t make sharp turns and no one seemed interested in grabbing a rebound.

Despite Utah’s big lineup, the Mavericks barely cracked double-digit points in the first half. Luckily, Jason Kidd and the Mavericks coaching staff got used to it coming out of the locker room and finally gave PJ Washington some beneficial encounters in the post. While the Jazz fielded three big frontcourt players, their starting guards are small in Keyonte George and Collin Sexton – the Mavericks gave Washington the lead on George several times in the third quarter, and Washington responded with an eight-point barrage of all four from him baskets in the color.

Washington kept its double-double streak alive with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Those eight points in the third quarter were crucial to the Jazz never playing with a lead in this game.

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