Mavs Lose To Spurs
By Steve Habel, The Sports Xchange
SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs’ recent trend of struggling at home continued Monday, but even an awful performance by San Antonio was not enough to allow for an upset by the short-handed Dallas Mavericks.
Kawhi Leonard scored 24 points as the Spurs posted their sixth consecutive victory by outlasting Dallas for a 96-91 win at the AT&T Center.
The Spurs led 90-88 before Leonard wrestled the ball away from Dallas’ Harrison Barnes near midcourt and swooped in for a dunk at the 2:07 mark. The Mavericks’ Wesley Matthews hit a layup and converted a free throw on the next possession to make it a 92-91 game.
After getting a stop, Dallas had a chance to take the lead, but Barnes missed a step-back jumper with 15 seconds to play. Manu Ginobili added to San Antonio’s lead with two free throws before Seth Curry missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with 6.9 seconds to go.
Dallas was in the game until the final seconds despite the absence of four key players: forward Dirk Nowitzki (right Achilles strain) and guards J.J. Barea (left calf strain), Deron Williams (left calf strain) and Devin Harris (right great toe sprain).
The Spurs started two rookies — first-round draft pick guard Dejounte Murray from Washington and Latvian forward Davis Bertans — against injury-depleted Dallas as coach Gregg Popovich decided moments before the game to rest guard Tony Parker and LaMarcus Aldridge.
Popovich minced no words after the game when describing his disappointment with what he witnessed.
“That was a pathetic performance on the part of the Spurs,” Popovich said. “They had some guys out, we had some guys out, but they had a lot more out than we did. We showed a lack of humility, a lack of respect for the opponent at both ends of the court, both in execution and in grunt, in fiber.
“It was an awful performance. Oh, and Dallas deserved to win the basketball game.”
Patty Mills added 17 points for the Spurs (11-3), while Pau Gasol and David Lee scored 16 and 12 points, respectively. San Antonio is just 4-3 at home but has won all seven of its road games.
“We are not playing as well at home as we are on the road, and that’s something we have to fix,” Ginobili said. “We’ve been outplayed by our opponents here, and we got outplayed again tonight, but Dallas has had so many injuries and no depth and that made the difference for us. We didn’t have the energy and focus we needed tonight.”
Curry led Dallas with 23 points, while Barnes and Matthews hit for 20 each. Salah Mejri pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds for the Mavericks.
The Mavericks, who have stumbled to an NBA-worst 2-11 start, lost for the sixth straight game and for the 20th time in the past 24 meetings with San Antonio.
“It’s tough, but the guys are fighting and there were a lot of positives,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “In this situation, I have to see if we are improving and are we doing the things necessary to win. You don’t control missed shots — this was actually one of our better shooting games of the year. We were doing an awful lot of things well.”
Dallas got 10 points from Barnes and eight from Curry while shooting 59 percent as the team from the floor and forging a 28-24 lead at the end of the first quarter. Leonard led the Spurs with 10 points, but San Antonio was uncharacteristically sloppy with the ball, committing five turnovers in the first 12 minutes.
The Spurs retook the lead, 36-35, on a 3-pointer by Leonard in the second quarter. But the Mavericks fought back behind Curry’s hot shooting (he hit 5 of 6 from beyond the arc in the first half) and leapfrogged San Antonio in the final minutes to garner a 49-48 advantage at intermission.
Matthews poured in three 3-pointers in the first 3 1/2 minutes of the third quarter to help push the Mavericks’ lead to 58-50.
“We went into this game expecting to win it, and we played well enough to do that — this one could have been ours,” Matthews said. “Lately we’ve picked up the tempo, which has been in our favor, and our defense has been solid. We had a chance to close out this game and we didn’t.”
The score was tied heading into the fourth quarter.
