Mavericks fall short to Thunder, 118-104, eliminated from the NBA Cup

The Dallas Mavericks took on the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night for the NBA Cup quarterfinals, looking to build on their recent success against OKC. This budding rivalry added yet another chapter to the book in this game.

Dallas got Naji Marshall back for this game, but was without OKC killer PJ Washington, who was absent due to an illness. Without Washington, Dallas started Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Quentin Grimes, Klay Thompson and Dereck Lively II. OKC started with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cason Wallace, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein.

It was an 8-0 start for the Mavs, with Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson each hitting threes. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t wait long, as he scored OKC’s first nine points before Lu Dort nailed back-to-back threes to take a 15-9 lead.

A 6-0 run by the Mavs would tie the game at 15 before Klay Thompson answered a Gilgeous-Alexander tear to regain the lead 18-17. But Oklahoma City’s defense would be the biggest story for the rest of the first quarter, forcing seven Dallas turnovers while OKC had just one. That allowed the Thunder to get out in transition and turn a 20-17 Mavs lead into a 32-24 OKC lead heading into the second quarter. A few of those turnovers came from Doncic trying to hit the home run pass across the floor that OKC would jump. That and Gilgeous-Alexander’s 16 points were the big difference in the first frame.

Dallas would cut the lead to two in the opening minutes of the second quarter, but unnecessary turnovers still killed them. They outshot the Thunder by 13% early, keeping the lead manageable, but turnovers kept them from getting over the hump despite some wizardry from Kyrie Irving.

OKC’s lead would hover between two and five for the next few minutes as OKC decided they were going to let someone other than Luka Doncic beat them as Kyrie Irving sat on the bench and Doncic blew on every screen. Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes were able to get some action before another Mavericks turnover, their 11th of the game so far, led to a Thunder three at the other end. Shooting from downtown, OKC shot 31 threes in the first half and only made 11. They came into the game attempting 39.6 three-pointers per GAME, so shooting 31 in a half is absurd. If not for Kenrich Williams’ 3/3 performance deep in the first half, their percentage would have been pretty ugly.

Despite Luka Doncic scoring just 1/7 in the first half, 14 points from Naji Marshall and 11 from Klay Thompson kept the Mavs within striking distance, trailing just 57-54 at halftime. Considering Dallas had as many turnovers as they did (credited with 11, there easily could have been two or three classified as rebound scrambles), that’s a road win. All they had to do was limit turnovers (easier said than done), and they made shots.

The Thunder started the half on a 10-2 run and built an 11-point lead. He did a good job of keeping the ball out of Luka Doncic’s hands as SGA continued to reach his spot. Dallas was just 1/8 from the floor to start the third, while OKC was 5/11. OKC then extended the lead to 16 with Doncic on the bench. The shots that didn’t fall in the first half fell in the third quarter.

With just over four minutes left in the third quarter, things got into dangerous territory and Doncic was brought back into the game. Dallas was able to cut it to 12 a few times before the end of the quarter, but SGA continued to respond with impressive buckets to keep the Mavs from cutting it to single digits, and the Thunder took a 90-73 lead at a buzzer beater -beater by Isaiah Joe. After struggling to score as a team in the first half, OKC shot 14/27 from the floor in the third quarter and 5/12 from three, thanks to SGA’s 7/8 shooting quarters.

OKC immediately pushed the lead to 20 in the opening minute of the first quarter, but Dallas quickly cut away with a 10-0 run in the span of 1:38, cutting the lead to 10 after consecutive corner threes in front of OKC bench by Kyrie Irving, including one over Isaiah Hartenstein as the shot clock expired.

An Olivier-Maxence Prosper three-pointer cut the lead to eight with less than eight minutes remaining, but OKC immediately responded with an 11-0 run to push the lead back to 19, getting five of those points from Cason Wallace and the other six from Jalen Williams. Klay Thompson would hit back-to-back threes to cut the score to 13, then Doncic would bank in a three for a four-point play to cut the score to 11 with three minutes remaining. But a Lu Dort corner three that would cut the lead to 12 with two minutes to go would freeze the situation. Oklahoma City would win 118-104, and the Mavericks are now eliminated from the NBA Cup.

Luka Doncic finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, but his slow start was difficult to overcome with just two points in the first three quarters. OKC did a great job keeping the ball out of its hands before Doncic forced the play in the fourth quarter. Kyrie Irving was also largely limited with 17 points on 7/14 shooting.

Dallas was led in scoring by Klay Thompson and Naji Marshall, who each had 19 points. Thompson was 5/10 from three, while Marshall was 7/11 from the floor and hit two threes.

All of these stats pale in comparison to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 39 points on hyper-efficient 15/23 shooting, including 5/9 from three-point range. He was simply unstoppable in this game, coming to his spot when he wanted and even stopping with a hand in his face. Jalen Williams was their second leading scorer with 18 points, followed by Lu Dort and Cason Wallace with 11 points each, and Isaiah Hartenstein with 10.

After shooting 11/31 from three in the first half, OKC was much more efficient in the second half, shooting 9/19. OKC won the rebounding battle 54-50, the turnover battle 18-13, and hit eight more field goals than the Mavs.

Dallas will play the loser of the Rockets and Warriors starting Wednesday night later in the week.

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