The new year had not been kind to the Dallas Mavericks, but with consecutive wins over fellow Western Conference competitors, Coach Jason Kidd hopes his team has righted the ship.
Despite the continued absence of stars Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, the Mavs dropped the surging Lakers by a 118-97 score, then topped the Portland Trail Blazers 117-111 on Thursday.
In the win over the Lakers, Quentin Grimes picked up the slack with 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists off the bench while P.J. Washington scored 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
“The guys executed the plan,” Coach Kidd said. “We shot the ball straight tonight. Being able to shoot the three and I thought a lot of people touched the ball and we didn’t settle.”
But the bigger story was the Dallas defense, which limited LA to 97 points on 45 percent shooting. It was the Lakers first time scoring less than 100 points in nearly a month, and just the third time the Mavs had kept an opponent under the century mark in their last 17 games.
“The offense was really really good, but the defense was even better. Being able to limit those guys to one tough shot, that’s not easy to do. That’s a really good team and they’re playing well right now.”
The Mavs carried the momentum from the victory over LA into a game two nights later against Portland and continued to have success offensively. Jaden Hardy led the way with 25 points off the bench while Washington added 23 and 14 boards and Dereck Lively scored 21 points and pulled down 16 rebounds.
Despite being put in an early hole by Portland, the Mavs hung in and then broke out in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Trail Blazers 36-22 over the final 12 minutes to emerge with their second straight win.
“The team stayed together and played 48 minutes and we found a way to win there in that fourth quarter,” Jason said. “D-Live played a lot of minutes there in that second half. I thought he was great on both ends. P.J. being our leader out there, is always positive with the guys, telling them to stay together and I thought that was a big part of us finding a way to win.”