Mavericks unveil city jerseys; shooting matches new threads

The Dallas Mavericks took on the LA Clippers tonight for about a quarter before Kawhi Leonard and crew took over and never looked back. Mavs fall, 114-99.

After an impressive five-game win streak in which the Dallas Mavericks offense looked absolutely unstoppable, maybe they were due for a rough night. I’m not sure that anyone would’ve guessed that night to be this rough, however. Dallas was dominated pretty much right from the tip-off and the LA Clippers played like the offensive and defensive juggernauts they are.

The thing about tonight’s game is that we know the Mavs are much better than this. Of course the Clippers are going to make the Mavs shoot the ball a little worse than usual, that is the benefit of having three or four of the better defenders in the league.

Interestingly enough, Luka Doncic was not having any more trouble than usual getting to his spots on the floor. He had open looks and attacked the basket well, but shots just weren’t dropping. Granted, he was getting fouled regularly as can be seen from his 16 free throw attempts. Regardless, this was perhaps Luka’s worst performance of the season.

This can’t be pinned totally on Luka, obviously. Even though he sets the tone for the team, the rest of the team struggled just as much, if not more. Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr. both shot poorly and did not do what we have come to expect from them. Most of the bench was the same way, with the exception of Seth Curry and J.J. Barea.

A bad shooting night (4-18 FG, 0-8 3P) couldn’t stop Luka from putting up 22 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals, but it certainly wasn’t the Luka we’ve grown used to seeing and the 7 turnovers is a huge area of concern.

The Mavs overall shot 38% from the field (which improved a lot thanks to the 4th quarter) and 28.9% from three. On the bright side, they did shoot 80% from free throw on 35 attempts. That is an improvement for this team.

Everyone except Courtney Lee made an appearance for the Mavs tonight, however, Justin Jackson was once again left out of the rotation for one reason or another. He could have been helpful in the shooting department, probably, although nothing wanted to drop tonight.

The Clippers were led by a shocking three players: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Lou Williams. Leonard scored 28, George had 26 and Sweet Lou had 21. Others in double-digits were Montrezl Harrell with 12 and Ivica Zubac with 11. LA also had 17 offensive rebounds, a big story from the night.

The only thing worse than the Mavs performance may have been the new city edition jerseys that the team unveiled today. Widely considered the worst city jerseys of the year, the Mavs new court design looked nice, but the jerseys underwhelmed in person just as much as they did on Twitter.

The Mavs will have a chance to get back in the win column on Black Friday as they take on the Phoenix Suns in Arizona. The game will tip-off at 8:00pm central time as the two current top-eight teams faceoff.