There were doubts as to whether Luka Doncic would be available or not at the time of his visit Dallas Mavericks it’s home Denver Nuggets. A cold and the change in altitude had affected the Slovenian, jeopardizing his participation and incidentally the Mavs’ chances of victory. However, the former Real Madrid player ended up playing, but his presence did not stop the away defeat for Jason Kidd’s men (130-104); It just stopped the beating from getting worse.
And Doncic, once again, was the only beacon in the offensive terrain that the Mavs sometimes are. With 38 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists, The Slovenian was the direct or indirect author of 55 of his team’s 104 goals. That is 52.8%.
Luca showed up tonight as the Mavs fell to Denver.
38 PTS 11 REB 8 AST pic.twitter.com/bB8UygGDdK
—NBA (@NBA) December 19, 2023
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All this on a night where Nikola Jokic didn’t need to be at his best, he just dedicated himself to distributing the play, getting his pair out of the paint and letting the rest do the rest. Nevertheless, with the 8 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists He moved up a spot in the history table of this last item, placing himself at 108th place (4214) with Charles Barkley as his next target.
The Mavericks once again lost a secondary scorer in the absence of the injured Kyrie Irving, but also a better job from their secondary players on defense. And the Nuggets trusted everything in their collective work to get the win, that was the pillar in which, little by little, they were separated on the scoreboard from their opponent. Beyond Jamal Murray’s 20 points or Aaron Gordon’s 22, it is necessary to look at the bench to find the reason for the victory.
With 62 points from the second unit to 34 from Dallas, the defending champions found their way to victory. This is where it stands out Reggie Jackson with 20 pointsas well as the rookie Julian Strawther (12) and Zeke Nnaji (14); that took advantage of Dallas’ collapse as well as its lack of depth.
The Mavericks’ loss drops them to 5th in the West, tied with the Clippers at 16-10, while Denver moves up to third (18-10).
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