The Dallas Mavericks scored enough points(120) on Tuesday night against the Pacers, but they had a hard time stopping Indiana as they defeated Dallas 137-120 at American Airlines Center.
Dallas, who allowed 133 points in their loss to the Pacers in February, has now lost three straight and five of their last six. Dallas has given up an average of 129.8 points per game in those five losses.
Indiana shot 54% from the field and was prolific from deep, making 18 threes. Dallas trailed 74-70 at halftime, but they couldn’t keep up with the Pacers in the third.
The Pacers started the third quarter on a 15-4 run, and they would lead by as many 18 in the quarter. From there, it was an uphill battle for the Mavs.
Dallas head coach Jason Kidd knows this team has to be better.
“We have to be better,” Kidd said. “I think just looking at the defensive side, I thought again, 74, 70 (points), it was shootaround. And talking about (Pacers center Myles) Turner, I thought we did a good job of taking away Turner in that third quarter. I’ve said this before when we score, we’ll play both sides of the ball, and that third quarter, we kind of went cold, and they kept playing, and that’s a credit to Indiana. They kind of play one way and that’s with their pace and putting pressure on you, shooting the 3. .. We’ve just got to be able to see it in real time, and so, these are things that we will be continuing to work on.”
Luka Doncic did his part offensively, having another triple-double with a game-high 39 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists. Kyrie Irving chipped in with 23 points, but again, those two and everyone else needed to do more on the defensive end.
Doncic is unsure why things are not going well for Dallas on defense.
“I don’t know, actually,” he said. “But we know we’ve got to fix it.
Mavs center Daniel Gafford, who had 16 points (7-7 FG), 10 rebounds, two assists, one steal and three blocks on Tuesday, says the team has to give a better effort on the defensive end.
“I would say it’s just overall effort and communication,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s the trust factor with the team that has to level up if we want to at least make that push to get out of the bottom third [in defensive rankings].”
In the end, Kidd believes Dallas can get things right on defense.
“We can fix this,” he said. “We’ll be ready for Thursday. We’ve got a lot of games left, but the personnel, we can look at different rotations. We can look at different starting lineups. We’ve talked about that before the game. We have options, and we’ll explore those.”
