In the case of the Mavericks, it is becoming a mistake to consider easy games as easy. They are the ones who are putting their face on it the worst this season. He had left behind losses against Magic and Rockets and has crowned the triplet with one against the Pistons. The Detroiters were, at the beginning of the day, the worst in the NBA (5-18), and they are revitalized by the Texan magic touch. Dallas is not knowing how to read matches like these, in which it is supposed that it could open up more to do some test -necessary- and to be able to reserve minutes for Doncic -who needs it- instead of suffering until exhaustion. This Thursday he played until extension, an even crueler punishment. 131-125 It was the final score at Little Caesars Arena after the Pistons set up facilities for the comeback.
Many look to France this year to see what Victor Wembanyama does. It is the thought in the mind when thinking about the tankingin being able to lose to win a better place in the next draft. For the Pistons it is nothing new, they have been in that spiral for a few years. And not with those. The Mavs are becoming that rival of the teams below with whom they can be happy (always within the thought of laxity when fighting each and every one of the parties). If we put the face of the last one chosen as number 1 by them, we get Cade Cunningham, a player who couldn’t even get dressed for this appointment because he is still injured. There were too many ingredients favorable to those of Jason Kidd, who has not yet put the signed Kemba Walker to play, so that when putting it all together there would be a sense. If the mix is made by us (France, Detroit, draftcustomization errors, players in question…) is when the high comedy arrives: the clincher of the night was Killian Hayes, the most criticized project there in recent yearswith the two triples that made the difference +6.
The Mavericks went to the free throws as an escape route in criticism. They gave a lot of value to those rulings to explain, at the end of the battle, the reasons that had led them to fall. It is true that the number can explode in your face if you stare at it (14/29), but there is a sin of reducing and simplifying major problems. The visitors let themselves go in the first quarter and that can be explained by the little tension at the beginning of the game, fine, but they repeated and even worsened their defense to nothing in the third and then suffered penalties to rebuild everything they had worked on. They came back from eight points in the last minute and a half of regulation and tied to lose later, leaving Luka Doncic with 35+5+10+3 in the statistics with the crooked gesture like the one in the photo that illustrates this piece.
Starting the game we saw that lack of effort that we talked about before. Letting the minutes run without putting all the strength possible to the defense of the hoop. Doncic was easy on the attack, releasing them well so that Hardaway finished on the outside or Powell on the inside. The plays were coming out. Also for the Pistons, of course, since there are no impediments. Bogdanovic (22) at the beginning and Ivey (16) a while later knew how to handle these situations well. During minutes of that first sleeve and also of the second, the Mavs were entrusting themselves to Hardaway, who is coming out of a very serious injury and is averaging only 32% accuracy on shots, so the plan had to change if they wanted the win. He didn’t do it enough. Detroit stretched the lead with an imperial run from the perimeter, with three 3-pointers from Bogdanovic, one from Bey and one from Burks that put them at +12, while the outlook on the other side wasn’t as bright. The contrast with the expert marksmen was not small: Green, 0/2; Bullock, 1/3; Finney-Smith, 2/4; Bertans was inconsequential and Dinwiddie only took two shots – in total, not triples – in 28 minutes. And when they got close it was for nothing. First, to nullify that advantage. A former Pistons like Christian Wood (25) put the basket that put them ahead. Everything stretched again and at 1:47 the locals were ahead again, this time by eight points. Race reaction, with triples from Hardaway and Doncic and an inside cut from Bullock that Kleber saw perfectly, to equalize. And they remained in love and company in overtime until Hayes appeared, the disowned, with two almost identical shots, from the front area of the perimeter but heeled to the right (being left-handed, more merit), to make Detroit prevail.
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