The Dallas Mavericks will be hunting a season sweep of the swooning San Antonio Spurs when they meet for the second time in three nights on Wednesday in the Alamo City.
Dallas captured the first game of the miniseries 133-129 on Monday despite suiting up the NBA-mandated minimum of eight players and playing the second game of a home-road back-to-back. Spencer Dinwiddie scored 28 points off the bench for the Mavericks, who took charge early in the fourth quarter and held on.
Klay Thompson added 26 points for Dallas, while Naji Marshall hit for 23, Kessler Edwards racked up 22 points and 11 rebounds, and Max Christie and Dante Exum scored 12 and 10 points, respectively. None of the Mavericks who were available for Monday’s game are over 6-foot-8 and six were 6-6 or shorter.
“High school, that’s what it feels like sometimes, because we’re so small,” Thompson said. “But we got a lot of heart. So, heart over height, you know?”
The Mavericks snapped a five-game skid and remained in 10th place in the Western Conference, the final spot for the play-in tournament.
“Great team effort with eight guys,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said after the win. “It had been a minute since we won, but the games before this, our spirits were still high. No one’s down.”
Don’t expect much to change for Wednesday rematch with the Spurs. Dallas still has eight players on the injured list, three on a minutes restriction and salary cap limitations that are keeping them from signing more players.
“We still want to make a run. The injuries have been awful, but I still love our team,” Thompson said. “We’re showing as much heart as we can.”
The Spurs got a season-high 29 points from Harrison Barnes in Monday’s loss and 28 from Keldon Johnson off the bench, which tied his season best. Devin Vassell added 24 points and De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle had 14 each for San Antonio, which has dropped three straight and four of its past five games.
“Offensively we did a great job — we scored the ball enough to win an NBA game,” Johnson said. “But defensively we’ve got to lock in all together, and deep in those possessions, we’ve got to get those stops.”
The Spurs were just 14 of 24 from the free-throw line, giving away points that were desperately needed in the final minutes.
“The effort and intention was there, for the most part,” Spurs acting head coach Mitch Johnson said. “I thought sometimes we got a little outside of ourselves.”
The Spurs are 3-8 since losing star center Victor Wembanyama for the rest of the season to a blood clot in this right shoulder on Feb. 20. Monday’s loss dropped San Antonio to a season-worst 11 games under .500.
The Mavericks have taken the first three games of the campaign, winning twice at home in the season’s first four weeks before securing Monday’s victory in San Antonio.
