Dallas Mavericks: Nice win against a scrappy Nets team

The Dallas Mavericks pulled out a nice win against the Brooklyn Nets tonight, leading almost the entire way to a 119-113 victory. Harrison Barnes led all scorers with 28.

The bounce-back effort from the Dallas Mavericks is something we have been hoping to see more of this season. The Mavs have gotten one game closer to .500 and have actually caught a division mate for the first time since early on in the season. At 8-9, the Mavs will get their shot to hit .500 against the Boston Celtics after three days rest.

Dallas has struggled against Boston in the past couple years with a current 4-game losing streak to the Celtics. They will get their chance to break that streak on Saturday when Kyrie Irving and company come to Dallas.

That isn’t what we are talking about tonight though, we want to talk about the Mavs beating the Nets. Despite a tight fourth quarter and a pretty close finish down the stretch, the Mavs actually never trailed in the game other than after the very first possession when the Nets went up 3-0. That shows a lot of poise for a relatively young team.

Although the Mavs played a really strong game, the highlight of the evening was definitely Dirk Nowitzki being honored with a key to the city from the mayor of Dallas. The big German has done just about everything he can for this city and this team and the mayor took notice. Congratulations, Dirk.

The Mavs were led in scoring tonight by Harrison Barnes, who looked like a completely different player from Monday night. After shooting 3-14 and scoring only 10 points against Memphis, HB responded with his best game of the season. Barnes scored 28 points on 10-20 shooting, including 5-8 from three-point and 3-3 on free throws. He also grabbed 5 rebounds.

Other Mavericks who did well on the stat sheet include Luka Doncic with 21, J.J. Barea and Devin Harris with 18 apiece, 12 for DeAndre Jordan and 11 for Maxi Kleber. Dennis Smith went 2-3 with 4 points while playing through a wrist injury that clearly hampered him. Dorian Finney-Smith had a rough night going 1-9 with 5 points. Salah Mejri rounded out the scoring with 2 points.

For the Brooklyn Nets, it was Allen Crabbe having the night of his life, scoring a season high of 27 points on 10-16 shooting and 7-11 from three. Crabbe has been a known shooting threat for much of his career, but has struggled recently. This game may help him get back on track. Aside from Crabbe, the Nets also had 19 from Spencer Dinwiddie and 17 apiece from D’Angelo Russell and Ed Davis. This was a season high for Davis and his highest mark since the 2014-15 season.

Dallas also won in the turnover battle 14-13. This marked another game where the Mavs did fairly well protecting the ball. Dallas led the match in rebounds, steals and blocks as well.

Perhaps the most impressive stat for Dallas tonight was the amount of times they were able to get to the free throw line. The Mavs shot 41 free throws on the night, thanks to 31 fouls committed by the Nets. Dallas sunk 32 of the free throws.

Dallas had a great win tonight and will get the chance to fight back to .500 this Saturday when the Boston Celtics come to town. The game will tip off at 7:30pm central time. Let’s go Mavs!