INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The Mavericks arrived in Los Angeles full of hope, riding a stretch of five wins in seven games and talking playoffs.
The LA Clippers put those talks on hold, at least for the moment.
While Anthony Davis returned to the court and kept the Mavericks in the game for a half, the Clippers blew open the game in the third quarter and rolled to a 135-104 victory Saturday night at the Intuit Dome.
This after the Clips had won by 23 points on Friday.
The Mavericks slid to 38-41 and now need to sweep their final three games to get to .500 for the season, which ends on April 13 in Memphis.
In between, they have plenty of intrigue waiting for them on Wednesday when Luka Doncic makes his return to Dallas with the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James.
As if the Mavericks don’t have enough on their plate just trying to get to the play-in tournament for a shot at making the playoffs.
And, for the moment, they fell into a tie with the Sacramento Kings for ninth place, which the Kings would earn via tiebreaker if the teams should finish the regular season with identical records.
If that happens, the 9 vs. 10 play-in game would be in Sacramento.
But unless things change for the Mavericks, it may not matter. They had a world of problems with the Clippers, although just seeing Davis and Dereck Lively II starting together was enough to inject a kernel of optimism into the Mavericks’ system.
Davis, who sat out Friday’s game, finished with 27 points and nine rebounds and while Lively played only 15 minutes (because of his minutes restriction, amassing just two points, three rebounds and two steals), he still gave the Mavericks a different look with Davis being able to roam to his favorite spots on the floor while Lively manned the center position.
The Clippers got 29 points each from Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, who tacked on 14 assists. Ivica Zubac had 25 points and 10 rebounds.
The problem for the second night in a row is that the Mavericks couldn’t crack the Clippers’ defense. They shot well below 30 percent from three-point range (25.9 percent) for the second night in a row and if you take away Klay Thompson’s 4-of-8 from beyond the arc, it was even worse for the rest of the group (3-of-19).
“When you have someone like AD create the double-team or they zone up, it’s going to create the three at a high level,” coach Jason Kidd said before the game. “You’re going to make some and you’re going to miss some, so hopefully we got all our misses out last night.”
No such luck. The Mavericks instead will return home needing to protect the AAC court if they hope to host the play-in game.
X: @ESefko
