Kings vs. Mavericks Preview – By the Numbers
The Pacific Division Champs head to Dallas to take on the staggering Mavericks, as the Kings look to deal a fatal blow to the Mavs playoff chances. They can’t eliminate them tonight, but a win would make it extremely difficult for Dallas to recover and make the Play In. Let’s see what the Kings can do to get the job done.
Since Kyrie’s first game in Dallas, the Mavericks are just 8-16, which is good for the 5th worst record in the NBA during the time, and have lost 7 of their last 8 games. During the total 24 game stretch, the Mavs have the 8th ranked offense, and the 25th ranked defense. It turns out that completely gutting your team’s depth to bring in another star may not be the best in-season trade idea, especially when your depth was thin to begin with.
Both Kyrie and Luka are listed as Probable for tonight, so there’s no certainty that they play, but if they do, the Kings will obviously have to look to slow them down. The question with this version of the Mavs will always be can the other players score enough to keep up with opponents?
Luka and Kyrie have played 15 games together and have combined to score at least 40 Points together in every game. They’ve topped 50 in 11 games, and have reached 60 combined Points 6 times. The problem for them, and great for the Kings, is that they are only 4-11 in those games. They haven’t shown that they can bring a well-rounded approach to score enough on offense to offset their porous defense, and it doesn’t get any easier for them tonight as they take on the best offense in the history of the NBA.
Even if they are getting scoring contributions from other members of the team and manage to get some stops, the Mavs rebounding has been a huge issue. Since February 7th, they are averaging 38.5 Rebounds and are allowing 15.6 2nd Chance Points, both of which are the worst in the NBA. The Kings aren’t a huge 2nd Chance team, averaging 13.0 (20th) per game, but should look to take advantage of the opportunity for some easy putbacks tonight. Sacramento is 28-9 when they win the battle of the boards, compared to 19-22 when they lose. (They’ve tied once and won, for anyone out there doing quick math for the missing game). But when you have the league leading rebounder on your team in Sabonis, this is a matchup that scream feast on boards.
The other battle that will be important tonight is the 3-point battle. The Mavs shoot 40.6 3’s per game, 3rd most in the league. They lit the Kings up twice from beyond the arc in the last two matchups going 20-of-51 (39.2%) and 18-of-43 (41.9%) from deep in the mini-series split. The Kings don’t necessarily need to win the 3-point battle tonight, but they can’t get destroyed and lose it 18-7 or something like that. If the Kings can hang close beyond the arc, which they are MORE than capable of doing, they should control enough of the other aspects of the game to walk away with the win, and bury the Dallas Mavericks.
