On Saturday night, the Dallas Mavericks(16-16) got Kristaps Porzingis back in the lineup against the Brooklyn Nets. Porzingis and Luka Doncic led the way for Dallas against Brooklyn. Doncic scored a team-high 27 points, and Porzingis chipped in with 18 points as the Mavericks defeated the shorthanded Nets 115-98 at Barclays Center.
“We just played like a team,” Doncic said after the game. “Everybody involved everybody doing the effort on defense and offense. Just playing like a team.”
Brooklyn(22-13) was without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant on Saturday night, and without those two, Brooklyn was held to 34 points in the second half, and James Harden, who scored 25 points in the first half, was held to four points the rest of the way.
According to Doncic, the team was more aggressive on defense against Harden and the Nets in the second half.
“He’s a great player,” Doncic said about Harden. “Obviously, they had two great players out, but he’s an amazing player. It’s very tough to stop him. We did a great job in the second half. I think it was way better. Just I think more aggressive.”
Back to Porzingis, who made his return after missing three games with lower back tightness, Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle was happy to get his big man back and happy with his performance on Saturday night.
“I thought KP was terrific,” Carlisle said. “He had good bounce. He had surprisingly good rhythm for a guy who hasn’t not played in 10 days. I thought his rim protection and defense was the best it’s been all year. It just shows the amount of work he’s been putting in over the last 10 or 11 days.”
The Mavericks caught a break not going against a full Brooklyn squad, but Dallas is back at .500, and now they have a chance to get over that mark when they head to Orlando to battle the Magic on Monday night.
Leave a Reply