Utahthanks to the combined 58 points of Donovan Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic, took advantage of the absence of Luka Doncic on the Mavericks side, to win at Dallas (99-93) the first game of their series of 1er tour des play-off NBA.
Led by 12 lengths at the start of the last quarter, Dallas fought back to come back to one unit two minutes from time. Moment at which Royce O’Neal, invisible until then, came out of his box. He captured an unexpected offensive rebound, the ball almost immediately returning to him for his first basket of the game, three points (95-91), which definitively extinguished the Texan hopes.
Without Doncic, who is nursing a calf strain, Dallas obviously lacked solutions in attack, despite the efforts of Jalen Brunson (18 pts) and Spencer Dinwiddie (17 pts).
Game 2 will take place on Monday, still in Dallas.