Dallas Basketball

'Controlling Destiny': Doncic, Mavs Beat Jazz, Take Possession of 4th in West

In one of the most important games of the season, the Dallas Mavericks came out on top.

Dalton Trigg

After being embarrassed in Minnesota to start the weekend, the Dallas Mavericks knew they had to bounce back strong against the Utah Jazz on Sunday night to keep their home-court advantage hopes alive.

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Luka Doncic, Jazz
© Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

With Utah missing Rudy Gobert (right leg contusion), the Mavs locked up Donovan Mitchell in route to a 114-100 beatdown at American Airlines Center. The Mavs improved to 46-29 on the season and took sole possession of fourth place in the Western Conference standings. With just seven games remaining, Dallas controls its own destiny for starting the playoffs at home for the first time in over a decade.

"I think the first quarter was more or less we had to get over the fact that [Rudy] Gobert wasn't playing,” said coach Jason Kidd of his team’s second-half turnaround. “Quin [Snyder] does a great job with that group. They played hard. But I think once we found the pace and we started not to hold the ball and we started to move the ball and we started to get open looks, we made those."

Luka Doncic struggled in his last two outings (both against the Timberwolves), but he took it to the Jazz on Sunday by putting up 32 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes of play. Doncic shot 11-of-21 from the field and 4-of-7 from deep.

Reggie Bullock had a breakout performance for Dallas, as he scored 23 points on 8-of-12 from the field and a season-high 7-of-11 from 3-point range. Bullock also played a big role in holding Donovan Mitchell to just 12 points on 4-of-13 shooting.

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Dallas also received double-digit scoring from Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie in this one. Brunson finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, while Dinwiddie added 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting off the bench.

Dallas is now 26-12 at home this season, whereas Utah is just 19-19 on the road. With the Jazz being a likely playoff opponent for the Mavs, securing home-court advantage would seem to provide Dallas with a nice boost.

"You only will be judged when the playoffs start," said Kidd. "[Utah] will continue to play games and we will, too."

The Mavs will now shift focus to the struggling Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night. The Lakers have lost two games in a row and seven of their last 10 after falling to the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday. The Lakers are now sitting at 10th in the West, just one game ahead of missing the Play-In Tournament entirely.

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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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