Mavericks: Loss to Blazers by the Numbers

The Mavericks really struggled to score in their 94-75 loss to the Portland Trailblazers Thursday night. Neither team exactly made it rain in the Pacific Northwest, but it was especially ugly for the Mavericks.

The best way to accurately portray their struggles would be to simply point out a few numbers from the game. If you’re a squeamish Maverick fan you might want to navigate away from the page.

75: The 75 points scored by the Mavericks was a season-low. By a lot. Their previous low was 87 scored on three occasions. One of those occasions was against these same Trailblazers on November 6th.

31: The Mavericks scored 31 points in the second and fourth quarters. Combined. Dallas actually took a 23-17 lead into the second quarter, but were outscored 23-13 and trailed by 4 at the half. They could muster only 18 points in the fourth despite getting 8 out of Amar’e Stoudemire alone.

31%: The Dallas backcourt shot just 31% from the field. Monta Ellis was 5-20, Rajon Rondo 5-13, J.J. Brea shot 2-8, and Devin Harris 3-8. They combined to go 0-7 from three-point land as well.

12.5%: The backcourt was a major contributor to this one, too. The Mavericks shot 12.5% from deep against the Blazers, also a season low. They were 2-16, just barely worse (percentage-wise) than the 4-31 they shot against the New York Knicks in November. Dallas somehow won that game in overtime.

41.5%: Portland shot 41.5% from the field, well below the season average for all NBA teams. Still, they were able to come away with a 21-point victory. The 37.5% shot by the Mavericks contributed to Portland’s 48 defensive rebounds, a total only eclipsed in an overtime victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.

Like I said, ugly. But the “good” news is that Dallas missed a whole lot of wide open shots. Shots that they normally knock down at a much higher rate than they did in Portland. Not to take anything away from the Blazers, who played well defensively, but it’s not like they had the Mavericks in a stranglehold all night long.

Another positive was the strong play of Stoudemire. He was 5-7 from the field for 12 points. In his five games in Dallas Amar’e is averaging 11 points on 64% shooting in 17 minutes a night.

Dallas will bounce back from their bad shooting night, but it won’t be easy. They travel to Oakland for the second game of their back-to-back against the Golden State Warriors. ORACLE Arena is a tough place to play and the Warriors are a very good defensive team. Dallas will need some of those shots they missed tonight to fall against the league’s best team to avoid another beatdown.

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