Dallas Basketball

Dinwiddie Stays Hot, But Shorthanded Mavs Fall to Jazz

Spencer Dinwiddie and the Dallas Mavericks put up a great effort in Salt Lake City on Saturday night with Luka Doncic sidelined due to an ankle injury, but it wasn't enough to pull off the upset over the Utah Jazz.

Dalton Trigg

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Coming off a surprising win against the streaking Phoenix Suns with Luka Doncic injured, the Dallas Mavericks flew to Salt Lake City knowing they had a tall task at hand against a young-and-talented Utah Jazz squad on Saturday night.

Despite another admirable effort, the Mavs just didn't have enough in the tank down the stretch as they fell to the Jazz, 108-100. Dallas fell to 26-25 on the season, and Utah improved to 26-26.

Spencer Dinwiddie, who scored a season-high 36 points in the Mavs' win over the Suns on Thursday, continued his hot streak against the Jazz despite the loss. He finished the night with 35 points, four rebounds and eight assists on 11-23 shooting, including 6-11 from deep in 42 minutes. Although the Mavs have many roster concerns, Dinwiddie being able to fill in for Doncic admirably isn't one of them.

Four other Mavericks aside from Dinwiddie finished with double-digit points, including Reggie Bullock, Josh Green, Dorian Finney-Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. Bullock was the Mavs' second-leading scorer with 19 points on 7-10 shooting, including 5-8 from deep.

Utah was led by Lauri Markannen and Malik Beasley, who finished with 29 and 19 points respectfully. Markannen shot 11-20 from the field, grabbed five rebounds and dished out five assists in his 35 minutes.

The next few weeks will be interesting for the Mavs, who are sure to be involved in numerous trade rumors as the Feb. 9 deadline inches closer. As it stands on Saturday night, Dallas is just 2.5 games back of the third seed in the Western Conference standings, but it's also just 2.5 games away from the 13th spot, which would be well outside of the play-in tournament range.

Next up, the Mavs return to Dallas for a two-game homestand before embarking on a tough five-game road trip at the beginning of February. The Mavs take on the Detroit Pistons on Monday night at American Airlines Center. Dallas lost to Detroit in a 131-125 overtime matchup on Dec. 1.

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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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