Dallas Basketball

Dinwiddie’s Season-High 36 Points Push Mavs Past Suns After Doncic Injury

Despite losing Luka Doncic to an ankle injury in the first quarter, the Dallas Mavericks prevailed against the Phoenix Suns on the road thanks to a season-high performance from Spencer Dinwiddie.

Dalton Trigg

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On top of all the other bad injury luck the Dallas Mavericks (26-24) have endured lately, they also lost Luka Doncic to an ankle injury after just three minutes of action during their 99-95 road win against the Phoenix Suns (25-25) on Thursday.

The Mavs needed something major to go their way given that the team had been 0-5 in games that Doncic doesn't play altogether … and something major they got indeed from Spencer Dinwiddie.

Dinwiddie answered the call to the tune of a season-high performance with 36 points, six rebounds and nine assists in 40 minutes. He shot 10-18 from the field, 5-6 from deep and 11-14 from the charity stripe.

Every time it felt like the Suns were poised to take the lead, Dinwiddie hit them with a huge 3-pointer to keep momentum on the Mavs’ side.

Leading 96-95 with just 12 seconds remaining, Reggie Bullock stepped to the free-throw line for two freebies. After making the first one, he missed the second, but Dwight Powell out-hustled Deandre Ayton for the offensive rebound. That sequence led to Ayton fouling Powell, and Powell then stepped to the line and calmly nailed the game-winning free throws.

Powell finished with 15 points and four rebounds on 6-9 shooting in 36 minutes. Ayton had 19 points and 20 rebounds in 31 minutes for Phoenix, but he shot just 6-20 on the night.

Suns veteran guard Chris Paul tried to get into Powell’s head before his clutch free-throw makes, but it was to no avail.

"[CP3] said, 'Make the first, miss the second.' So I half agreed with him,” Powell told TNT in his postgame interview.

Dorian Finney-Smith stepped up as the Mavs’ second-leading scorer with 18 points on 7-16 shooting. He secured a double-double as well, as he grabbed 12 rebounds.

Next up, the Mavs take on the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Saturday night. Stay tuned to DallasBasketball.com, because we should know more about Doncic’s availability for that one throughout the day on Friday.

“We’ll see [about Doncic’s availability] as we go forward here. We’ll have probably more information once we get to Utah,” said coach Jason Kidd after the win. “He was smiling, and he was happy for his teammates, saying [Powell] made some big free throws and that missed free throw rebound [over Ayton]."

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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

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