WASHINGTON – Staying home usually is the epitome of a depressing Saturday night, but no one could blame the fans who opted to leave roughly 6,000 Capital One Center seats empty on this night.
Staying home or going elsewhere definitely was more prudent than paying to watch Eastern Conference cellar-dweller Washington host last-in-the-West Dallas.
Someone, though, had to win, and it was the Mavericks who pulled out a 111-105 victory, no doubt to their immense relief. Naji Marshall’s 30 points led five Mavericks in double figures, including P.J. Washington’s 14 points and 10 rebounds.
Dallas outscored Washington 29-19 in the fourth quarter, ended its four-game losing streak and “improved” to 3-7. This is the Mavericks’ worst 10-game start since the 2018-19 season, when they also began 3-7.
Mavericks
But, hey, at least they averted a second loss this season to Washington (1-9), which dropped its eighth straight game since beating the Mavericks by 10 in Dallas.
“I think it started with our defense,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said of the fourth quarter, adding “and I thought we did a really good job of executing the plays down the stretch.”
The Mavericks understand that to fans what matters is the bottom line – not that on Saturday Dereck Lively II missed his sixth game; Anthony Davis missed his fifth despite being upgraded to questionable; and Klay Thompson was a late-afternoon scratch due to an illness.
The pressure to win, and the growing external noise surrounding embattled Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, will ratchet all the more during this week’s four-game homestand, starting against Milwaukee on Monday.
Both teams were playing the second-night of back-to-backs and coming off humbling defeats. The Mavericks trailed by as many as 35 points at Memphis, while Washington fell by 34 to Cleveland.
The difference is the Wizards’ loss was here in Capital One Center, while the Mavericks didn’t arrive at their Washington, D.C. hotel until 3 a.m. – following a late flight and lengthy delay in the chartered bus picking them up from Dulles Airport.
It wasn’t a surprise, then, that for the third straight game Dallas fell into an early hole, 16-9.
The difference this time was the Mavericks dug deep and summoned a 19-0 run en route to taking a 35-24 lead after one quarter.
Perhaps most notably, 10 of the 11 Mavericks who played in the first quarter scored.
The Wizards, though, gradually pulled ahead by outscoring Dallas 29-22 in the second quarter and 33-25 in the third, limiting the Mavericks to 18-of-46 (39%) shooting.
Washington carried an 86-82 lead in the fourth quarter and took as much as a 94-87 lead, but the Mavericks fought back and took a 96-94 lead on a Brandon Williams 3-pointer with 6:40 left.
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