Luka Doncic & Kyrie Irving's Dallas Mavs Take on Dillon Brooks, Houston Rockets' NBA-Best Defense; Revenge Game?
After playing six of their last seven games on the road, the Dallas Mavericks (10-6) begin a three-game homestand – their longest of the young season so far – on Tuesday night at American Airlines Center against the surprisingly ahead-of-schedule Houston Rockets (8-6).
Tonight's game will feature a big contrast in play styles, as Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the Mavs like to up the tempo with their seventh-ranked pace (101.06) and fourth-ranked offense (118.0), whereas Dillon Brooks and the Rockets want to muck things up with their 28th-ranked pace (97.13) and NBA-best defense (106.8).
Although the Mavs have produced one of the best offenses in the league this season, they fell into a shooting rut during their two-game Los Angeles road trip. Against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Mavs shot 39.6 percent from the field, which was a season-worst at the time. They followed that performance by producing a new season-worst shooting percentage against the Los Angeles Clippers at 37.4 percent.
The Mavs are too good of an offensive team for those low shooting numbers to continue for much longer, but the Rockets are a tough team to try to break out of a slump against. Something will have to give on Tuesday, but we’re leaning toward Dallas having a bounce-back game.
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At the end of last season, the Mavs faced Brooks three times within a 10-day period in March when he was still a member of the Memphis Grizzlies. Dallas lost all three of those games, with Doncic not playing in any of them due to a quad injury and Irving, who was battling a plantar fasciitis issue, only playing in the last of the three – a 112-108 loss in Memphis where Brooks tried to swap jerseys with Irving but was denied.
Now, though, Doncic and Irving will both be available to take on Brooks and his new team on Tuesday, and they'll surely have a little extra motivation to make a statement in this one based on how the end of last season went. Brooks prides himself as being one of the best defenders in the league, and he is ... but he also lets his mouth get him in trouble sometimes.
We'll see if the extra days of rest paired with returning home for the first time in more than a week will be enough to not only get Doncic out of his current shooting slump, but also snap the Mavs out of their current funk where they've lost four of their last six games after starting the season 8-2.
As far as injuries go, Doncic suffered a sprained thumb in the Mavs’ loss against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday, but head coach Jason Kidd said he’d be ready to roll against the Rockets. Maxi Kleber will remain out with a toe injury, and 19-year-old rookie Dereck Lively is listed as questionable with a back contusion. Dallas is 0-2 when Lively doesn’t play this season.
For the Rockets, Brooks, Fred VanVleet, Tari Eason and Jae’Sean Tate are all probable for tonight’s game. Amen Thompson (ankle) and Victor Oladipo (knee) will both be out.
Tonight’s game at AAC tips off at 7:30 p.m. CT, and it’s technically an In-Season Tournament game, although the Mavs have already been mathematically eliminated. If the Rockets win, they will win Group B. If the Mavs win, the New Orleans Pelicans will win Group B. Dallas is listed as a 4.5-point favorites tonight.
