See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Just 24 hours after failing to get a fourth-quarter field goal attempt, Kristaps Porzingis scored 11 fourth-period points Thursday night to spark the Mavericks to a 116-101 comeback victory over Milwaukee at American Airlines Center.
Playing the second game of a back-to-back for only the third time this season, Porzingis poured in 26 points, pulled down 17 rebounds and blocked two shots. Luka Doncic added 27 points, nine assists and nine rebounds as Dallas (29-22) won for the sixth time in seven games.
Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said the beauty of Thursday night, which he called a “playoff-type atmosphere,” was that Dallas’ 36-17 fourth-quarter blitzing of the Bucks happened with few play calls.
“When it’s in the flow like tonight, then it’s simple, the ball comes to me,” said Porzingis, whose rebound total was one shy of his career high. “But there are some situations where, whether it’s Luka or myself, they don’t back off at all or they switch right away, so you get nothing easy, so that’s when you need to call plays.”
Porzingis hit back-to-back 3-pointers, both off of feeds from Doncic, to give Dallas the lead for good, 95-93, and the late barrage was on. Porzingis’ and Doncic’s on-court chemistry, which has been closely followed by fans in recent weeks, seemed improved Thursday.
At one point in the first half Porzingis and Doncic knuckle-tapped, a moment that fans gleefully noted on Twitter.
“Yeah, we’re trying to play together and help each other,” Porzingis said. “We want to win. At the end, we all want to win the game. We have to keep playing and keep playing together and keep playing well and help each other.”
Porzingis’ huge fourth-quarter helped the Mavericks erase a horrific finish to the third quarter, when Milwaukee outscored Dallas 12-0 during the final 1:25 to take an 84-80 lead into the fourth.
The meltdown included two turnovers, an offensive foul and a technical foul on Doncic, all within a 42-second span.
Coming off Wednesday’s loss at 13-37 Houston, a game in which coach Rick Carlisle said “our attention to detail wasn’t good enough,” Dallas caught a big break Thursday.
The Bucks were without two-time reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Giannis Antetokounmpo, who missed his third straight game with left knee soreness Thursday as Milwaukee concluded a six-game road trip.
On this night, fans seemed to have two main questions: How well would Dallas bounce back from the dismal Houston loss? And would Porzingis, playing a rare second night of a back-to-back, get more fourth-quarter shots than he did against the Rockets?
Of course that was a low bar, or, rather, a nonexistent one, since Porzingis got zero shots in 6:52 of final-quarter court time against Houston, leading to this postgame reaction from the 7-3 center:
“Good question. It’s just the plays we were running. Happened before, also.”
Carlisle said he spoke to Porzingis after the Mavericks’ walk-through on Thursday morning, not about Porzingis’ comments but about “things we can do to keep him more involved” and combat the switching defenses that teams employ against him.
Carlisle explained, to reporters Thursday, not Porzingis, that the issue is more complicated than “not getting shots.”
“First of all, there are a couple things that are pretty constant,” Carlisle said. “KP almost always has one of the better defenders from the other team on him, and most of the time, teams are in a switching defense.
“When that happens, down the stretch [Wednesday] night, we were attacking weaker defenders that were guarding other players. As has been explained so many times, one of KP’s great values is what he brings from a spacing standpoint. When he stands out beyond the 3-point line, his guy is glued to him.”
Against the Bucks, Porzingis had 15 points and 13 rebounds through three quarters. He re-entered the game with 8:01 remaining and Dallas trailing 93-89.
He got touches on Dallas’ next three possessions. On the second and third ones, he made 3-pointers. Issue seemingly solved, at least for one night.
“When that happens and we don’t win the game,” Carlisle said of the Houston loss, “this kind of thing’s going to come up. So as a coach, I’ve got to reconcile and balance all these things, and try to get and make sure we’re doing the right things during all stretches of the game.”
Thursday marked only the third time this season that Porzingis has played both ends of a back-to-back. The other times were Jan. 17-18 and Feb. 3-4. In five other back-to-backs, Porzingis played the first game but not the second.
Some fans have bemoaned Porzingis’ lack of availability, or, rather, the organization’s reluctance to play him in those situations, but it isn’t as though his presence in the two previous back-to-backs helped.
In the Jan. 17-18 back-to-back, Dallas lost at home to Chicago by 16 and on the road to Toronto by 23. On Feb. 3-4, the Mavericks won at Atlanta by six, but were routed by 31 points at home by the Warriors.
Carlisle said one of the reasons the organization decided this was the right opportunity to use Porzingis on consecutive nights was that he had only played twice in six days, and because Dallas doesn’t play again until Sunday, when it hosts San Antonio.
“That’s a factor,” Carlisle said. “But I don’t feel compelled to go into all the reasons for everything we do medically. A lot of that stuff, it’s up to the trainers and doctors. But I think that’s one of the factors. And he feels good.”
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