Field Level Media
Dec 10, 2018
The Dallas Mavericks made it 10 home wins in a row in front of their fans Monday night by making a mockery of the Orlando Magic with a wire-to-wire 101-76 victory.
While the Mavs needed a little late-game magic from their stellar rookie Luka Doncic to sneak past the Houston Rockets on Saturday and keep the streak alive, Orlando -- losers of three straight and seven of 10 -- provided little suspense in this one.
Dallas, in moving a season-best three games over .500, notched its Western Conference-leading 12th home win in 14 games. It was also the Mavs' seventh consecutive home victory against the Magic.
Dallas led 24-19 after the first quarter and 52-40 at the half. If the Magic had any notion of climbing back in the second half, Dallas stamped that out quickly as Wesley Matthews, Harrison Barnes and then Jalen Brunson buried 3-pointers for a 61-44 lead. Five minutes later, it was 70-48 and as the Magic and their offense put on a disappearing act.
Barnes led Dallas with 19 points that included 15 on 3-pointers. The rookie Brunson, starting again in place of the injured Dennis Smith Jr., contributed a career-high 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, plus four assists and a steal in 32 minutes. Dwight Powell led Dallas' bench effort with 16 points.
Doncic, the leading rookie-of-the-year candidate, nearly recorded his first career triple-double, although a somewhat ugly one, with career highs of 11 rebounds and nine assists to go with just seven points on 2-of-11 shooting.
The Magic's only offensive threat was Jonathon Simmons, who scored 18 points. Aaron Gordon took until the fourth quarter to get into double digits and finished with 10 on 4-of-15 shooting. Nikola Vucevic had one of his worst shooting lines of the season, going 4 of 15 for eight points. He did grab 16 rebounds.
Orlando attempted just five free throws and one of those came on a defensive 3-seconds penalty. The Magic went 8 of 28 from beyond the arc and after shooting 40 percent from the floor in the first half, finished at just 36 percent overall.
--Field Level Media