Dallas Mavericks fall short late to red hot Warriors

The Dallas Mavericks fought hard for 48 minutes but it just wasn’t enough as the Golden State Warriors, led by the red-hot Stephen Curry, took down the Mavs 119-114.

Another day, another nail-biting loss for the Dallas Mavericks, this time at the hands of the Golden State Warriors. Despite a great showing from multiple Mavs players, nothing could slow down the onslaught from Steph Curry, who scored an unruly 48 points on 17-32 shooting and 11-19 from three.

I am not always one for moral victories, but the fact that the Mavs were still in this game with only seconds left is something that fans should be proud of at the very least. The Warriors may be struggling a little bit at this point in the season, but when Curry scores more than 40 points, they usually do pretty well.

In fact, since Curry came to the league, he has scored 40 or more points 35 different times. Out of those 35, only 5 resulted in losses and only one of those losses has come during the Kevin Durant era. Suffice it to say, the Warriors are near impossible to beat when Steph is on fire.

The Mavs, on the other hand, played a tough game, but were without J.J. Barea for the first time going forward in the post-achilles world. Jalen Brunson stepped into the role well with 12 points, 4 rebounds and an assist, but he did force up some shots that appeared to be out of his comfort zone. It will be interesting to see how he grows in this role.

Harrison Barnes had a decent game for Dallas with 22 points, 4 rebounds and only one turnover, but that turnover proved pretty detrimental in the final seconds of the game. Once again, Barnes relied heavily on threes and free throws to get his scoring, making only two field goals inside the three-point line.

At this point in the season, you can pretty much copy and past Luka Doncic‘s name into the player of the game. Luka scored 26 on 8-18 shooting, along with 6 rebounds, 5 assists and a steal, but he also had 5 turnovers in the game.

Part of this is because of the excellent defense that Klay Thompson played on Luka all night. The fact that he still came away with 26 despite Klay being glued to him all game and him not making a single field goal attempt in the 4th is pretty impressive.

The Mavs had a chance to tie the game at 117-117 with less than 10 seconds to go, but Barnes had a bad turnover, essentially dribbling it off his foot with only 6 seconds to go. Curry drained both free throws after an intentional foul and that was that.

One note during the game came via Mark Followill in the 4th quarter, when he said that for the entire season, Luka is 10-13 from the field during a field goal attempt in the last two minutes if that shot could either tie the game or give the Mavs the lead. That is really an incredible stat.

The Mavs will look to fix a few mistakes and get a win against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday here in Dallas. The Spurs have won 14 of their last 19 games and seem to have found their stride with the new roster. Be ready for a tough fight from both teams.