Kings match worst loss of season while Mavericks move up to No. 6 seed in NBA playoff race – Sacramento Bee
The Kings have been much better defensively in the month of March, but they had no answer for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night in Sacramento.
Doncic posted 28 points, 11 rebounds and four assists to lead the Mavericks to a 132-96 victory before a sellout crowd of 17,832 at Golden 1 Center and a national television audience on TNT.
Kyrie Irving had 24 points and eight assists for the Mavericks (43-29), who moved ahead of the Kings for the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference. Tim Hardaway Jr. came off the bench to score 22 points.
“We got our behinds kicked, starting with me all the way down,” Kings coach Mike Brown said. “You’ve got to give Dallas credit. They actually played the way we like to play. They just kept the game simple.”
De’Aaron Fox scored 18 points on 6-of-18 shooting for the Kings (42-30), who will play host to the Mavericks again on Friday. Keegan Murray scored 17 points. Domantas Sabonis had 12 points on 3-of-10 shooting with 11 rebounds and nine assists.
Sabonis recorded his 55th consecutive double-double, tying Jerry Lucas (1968) for the longest such streak in franchise history. Sabonis kept his streak alive one night after breaking Kevin Love’s record for the longest single-season double-streak since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976.
The Kings and Mavericks were tied for sixth in the West when the night began, two games behind the New Orleans Pelicans for the No. 5 seed and a half-game ahead of the Phoenix Suns for the seventh spot.
When the night was over, the Pelicans had lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Mavericks had beaten the Kings. The Mavericks are now in sole possession of sixth, one game behind the Pelicans. The Kings and Phoenix Suns are tied for seventh, one game behind the Mavericks.
“I think they were more physical than us tonight,” Fox said. “They got to loose balls, which allowed them to get out in transition. Thy got a lot of easy buckets and we weren’t able to get stops.”
Dallas shot 55.4% from the field while holding Sacramento to 38.9%. The Mavericks had a 50-42 rebounding advantage while outscoring the Kings 44-38 in paint points and 18-5 in fastbreak points.
“W talked about playing fast and we had five fastbreak points,” Brown said. “… To have five fastbreak points is not good enough, especially when they had 18. I don’t know why, but our transition passes were not good. We threw underhand passes. We threw off-balance passes over the top. We had to have three or four turnovers on passes in transition on that just cost us.”
Neither team led by more than six points in a tightly contested first quarter that featured three ties and three lead changes. The Mavericks went up by eight on a pullup jumper by Irving midway through the second quarter and extended the lead to nine a 3-pointer by Doncic with 2:47 to play in the half. The Kings trailed 58-53 at the break following a late basket by Sabonis.
Doncic finished the first half with 26 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals, going 9 of 15 from the field and 4 of 7 from 3-point range. Sacramento was outscored 10-3 in points off turnovers and 6-0 on fastbreak points. The Mavericks shot 47.7% from the field while holding the Kings to 44.7%.
The game started to get away from Sacramento when Irving and Derrick Jones Jr. hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the third quarter. That sparked a 15-2 run that put the Mavericks up 82-63. The Mavericks went 16 of 23 from the field and 6 of 9 from 3-point range in the third quarter and carried a 96-76 lead into the fourth.
The Kings waved the white flag when Colby Jones, Mason Jones, Kessler Edwards and JaVale McGee entered the game with their team 114-85 with 5:29 to go.
The Mavericks went up by as many as 39 points in the final minutes.
“I think we just had a lot of breakdowns defensively, especially in the second half,” Murray said. “Not so much in the first half, but once we started doubling, I feel like they picked us apart a little bit.”
