NEWSLETTER
The seasoned Warriors are showing the Mavericks that they’re just a bit early to the party this year.
Warriors 109, Mavericks 100
Series: GSW leads 3-0
The Golden State Warriors are beginning to look like their championship selves after taking a commanding three games to none lead over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night. The Mavericks look like a team that’s worn out and just a bit outclassed by the Warriors. Dallas has proven good enough to compete with the Dubs, just not good enough to beat them. After a rough opening game in these Western Conference Finals, the Mavs had two opportunities to counter the Warriors this weekend and let them slip through their fingers.
Luka Dončić has had a postseason to remember for the Mavs, but he can’t do it alone. Dončić scored 42 points in Friday’s loss and 40 in last night’s losing effort. Dončić is now averaging an insane 32.1 points per game in these playoffs. However, beyond Dončić, the scoring output for the Mavericks was limited. Spencer Dinwiddie scored 26 points in 32 minutes of action off the bench, and Jalen Brunson scored 20 points. That’s 86 of the Mavs’ 100 points scored by Dončić, Dinwiddie, and Brunson. That’s not going to cut it.
Dončić will not be able to carry this rendition of the Mavs out of a three-to-zero hole. Dallas season will come to a close sometime this week, and the veteran Warriors will return to the NBA Finals, but the Luka and the Mavs will be back. Dallas has to pieces, they’ll add some parts, and Luka Dončić is a bona fide star in the NBA who can lead a team to a championship.
On the other hand, the Warriors have the experience and pedigree of a champion, and it’s showing in this WCF series. When asked last night if the Warriors are ready to win another championship this season, Stephen Curry wouldn’t make any promises but sounded pretty confident that Golden State is in a great position.
“I’m not going to fast-forward,” Curry said. “We’re playing great basketball right now. We can play better, but we’re finding ways to win games. That’s how you piece this thing together. There’s no expectation other than what’s the challenge ahead of us, and the challenge now is to close out a series against a really good team to get back to an opportunity to win the Finals. …
“We talked about it when the playoffs started. Like, we had high hopes, and we still do, to win a championship, but we had no idea what it was going to look like. Our goal was to keep getting better as the playoffs went through because we were so far from our peak with everything going into how the season ended. That’s not lost on us, but it’s exciting.”
Curry scored 31 points on 50 percent shooting from the floor and three-point range and added 11 assists to the mix as Golden State pushed the Mavs into a corner. Andrew Wiggins added 27 points on 55 percent shooting, and Klay Thompson scored 19 points in a balanced Warriors’offensive attack. According to Steve Kerr, after gutting out series wins against Denver and Memphis in the first two rounds, the Warriors are playing their best basketball right now.
“This is probably our best stretch of the season, where we’ve been able to put together lineups and combinations that maybe we weren’t able to get to in the regular season,” Kerr said. “And we’ve got a lot of guys playing at a high level right now.”
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