‘This is My Gym!’: Knicks’ Randle Continues Success Against Mavs

New York Knicks star Julius Randle continues to experience success in his hometown of Dallas when playing the Mavericks.

The New York Knicks improved to 4-0 in games played in Dallas during the Luka Doncic era with a 107-77 win over the Mavericks on Wednesday. When New York comes to town, Julius Randle, who is a Dallas native, has an extra chip on his shoulder to have a strong outing. 

Since beginning his NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2015, Randle has averaged 22.1 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 4.8 assists in 10 games at the American Airlines Center. 

"Yeah, it's automatic man," Randle said. "You know, to play in front of my mom, sister, obviously my wife, and my sons were here. But yeah, anytime I play here in front of family like that, I always want to give them a good little show.”

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Spencer Dinwiddie Guarding Julius Randle

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Luka Doncic & Julius Randle

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Luka Doncic & Julius Randle Pleading to the Referee

In his latest performance against the Mavericks, Randle finished with 26 points, eight rebounds, and five assists. He shot 8-19 (42.1 percent) from the floor, 3-7 (42.9 percent) on 3-pointers, and 7-10 (70 percent) on free throws. 

Randle was feeling confident, even telling the Dallas bench: "This is my gym!" 

The Mavericks have deployed smaller lineups since moving on from Kristaps Porzingis. Randle viewed Dallas’ personnel as being a favorable matchup to attack by using his size and speed to put pressure on the rim… and the whistles.

“To put a little pressure down on the officials,” said Randle when asked about his elevated physical play. “I feel like they missed a couple of little things ... So, I was just like ‘you know [what], I am going to get to the rim [and] they don’t really have any rim protection on the team.’

“I think at one point, they were playing Doe-Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith] at the five. So, I was just like ‘I am just going to get to the rim and use my size and speed and if they collapse earlier in the game then I will just kick it out.’”

Randle often reverted to isolation to attack the Mavericks' defense, which was able to contain him more often than not. Where Randle proved to be a problem for Dallas, though, was during possessions where he attacked off the catch by playing within the flow of the Knicks' half-court offense. 

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Mitchell Robinson Blocks Shot

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Luka Doncic vs. New York Knicks

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Dallas Mavericks vs. New York Knicks

There were a few plays where Randle was able to get a full head of steam to the rim when pushing the pace in transition or being the ball handler in a ball screen situation. The Mavericks struggled with fouling when that happened. 

Defensive execution wasn't the Mavericks' issue in their loss to the Knicks. Finishing the game shooting with the second-worst 3-point percentage among any team to attempt over 40 3s in a single game this season proved to be too much to overcome.

"They were wide-open [shots]," Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. "That's basketball; you make some, you miss some. We missed a lot of them tonight, unfortunately. You shoot 13%, we shot 44 3s, only made six of them. A lot of those were wide-open shots. We'll get those shots in Houston and you've got to hope that they go down."

Next up, the Mavericks will look to bounce back on Friday when they travel to the Toyota Center to take on the Houston Rockets.