In an almost certain game, the Dallas Mavericks had to admit defeat against the Boston Celtics by a superb Kyrie Irving. The 102-110 defeat of the Mavs catapulted Celtics’ winning streak to 16 consecutive games.
After an 8:2 start of the Mavs, fans of Dirk Nowitzki and Maxi Kleber hoped that they could see the big surprise against the unbeaten Celtics, who have been unbeaten since 15 games. But then Kyrie Irving arrived and straightened out the emotional curve in the American Airlines Center. Irving wanted to beat rookie-point guard Dennis Smith Jr. Uncle Drew showed himself to be extremely aggressive early in the game, remained without a miss and scored 18 points in the first quarter.
When the man with the mask on the bench glowed a little further, the Celtics offensive suddenly fell apart completely. While Marcus Morris and Marcus Smart worked with some bricks on a home in Dallas, the Mavericks sneaked up to a point to Boston and kept the guests in the second quarter at a meagre 19 points.
The half-time break, however, actually caused Irving to cool down and adapt his performance to that of his fellow players. Against the ever improving Mavs-Defense, the all at once frighteningly uncreative Celtics found no solution and Dallas was able to work out a double-digit lead.
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The final phase was like a crime thriller: Dallas now suffered some ball losses, which Boston punished ice-cold. A renewed transition chance, which was completed by Jayson Tatum, compensated the game with 60 seconds left to play. Irving and Barnes missed the chance to take the lead and the game went into extra time. In the overtime, however, Irving took over again and scored 10 of his team’s 14 points. With 47 points (16/22 FG), Celtics’ newcomer finished the game.
Dallas was worn for a long time by Harrison Barnes (31 points, 10/21 FG), but in the overtime he and his fellow players ran out of steam. With 14 points (7/12 FG) and 12 rebounds, Dirk Nowitzki showed perhaps the best performance of his season so far. Maxi Kleber (0 points, 4 rebounds) was allowed to start next to Nowitzki for the second time in a row, but played most of his 15 minutes in the half-time and watched from the bank in the decisive phase. Daniel Theis was on the basket for 6 minutes, had no points, but was able to score 3 rebounds.
Dallas showed a very disciplined performance on the boards. With over 10 offensive rebounds per game, Celtics are among the best teams in the league in this respect – but despite extra time, they were only able to gain five second chances against the Mavs and thus set the lowest score in their previous season. The rebounding performance of Nowitzki was a big part of it.
Thanks to disciplined zone defence, the Mavs concealed one of their greatest weaknesses: rim protection. The 2-3-zone lured the Celtics away from the basket and caused Boston to be too often satisfied with jump throws. Only 30 percent of their litters were taken by Celtics.
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Kyrie Irving. Spectacular drives, buttery soft jump throws from the Dribble – Irving present once again that he has to hide from hardly anyone in the discussion about the best offensive player of the NBA. In addition, he was again extremely clutch and secured his team the victory they thought was lost in the overtime.
Yogi Ferrell. Instead of Rookie Dennis Smith Jr., Ferrell played mainly in the final phase of the game. Smith (8 points, 4/16 FG) had problems with his throw, but otherwise he didn’t play a really bad game. And Ferrell (6 points 2/7 FG) didn’t make it any better and missed some chances in the final phase.
For the Mavericks, there was a clear march route: Rick Carlisle deliberately wanted to exploit the weaknesses of Kyrie Irving in pick&roll situations. Again and again Barnes played the screener and attacked the mismatch against Irving aggressively.