Breaking down Mavericks’ game-losing play to Kings, and how it happened

The Dallas Mavericks haven’t lost many games they shouldn’t this season. The overtime defeat earlier this month to the Los Angeles Lakers is one, and falling, 95-94, to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday thanks to a Chimezie Metu game-winning 3 was, by everyone’s agreement, another one. “It’s a tough, tough, tough loss,” Kristaps Porzingis said afterward. “As the year’s going on, we’re getting better. … But this one’s on us.” Porzingis seemingly took on the role of spokesperson for the players — rightly so, as the team’s star that night — and shouldered the blame.

This is a short article, just like the postgame press conferences were. There’s not too much to say about a defeated team still limited by COVID-19 absences and grinding through the grueling post-holiday stretch as they are. But it’s worth walking through the decisions made late in Wednesday’s game, and the reasoning behind each one. I’ll assign blame where I see it, but you can make the final call about who and what was most responsible.

The clutch offense in the final minutes

While the Mavericks haven’t lost many games in the final minute, they also haven’t been good in clutch situations. This season’s Mavericks, now 16-18, have played 34 games with half of them involving clutch situations, defined by the NBA’s stats site as being within five points in the final five minutes. In those instances, Dallas has won just six of the 17. Their win percentage in clutch games is 24th-best in the league. Their clutch offense is 26th-best, harkening back to the 2019-20 season, where the team turned efficient scoring into inefficient mush when games got tight. It’s a different coaching staff, and the team’s clutch offense was fine last season. Clutch settings are incredibly small sample sizes. It’s just worth noting since many of the key players remain largely the same.

Dallas went ahead, 86-81, with 5:44 remaining after a dunk from Dorian Finney-Smith, who was limited to 26 minutes after picking up five fouls early in the third quarter. They may well have won without that happening. In the final five minutes, Dallas had chances to score on five of the nine offensive possessions but only drew points from four of them when Dwight Powell missed two free throws with 4:18 remaining.

“Yeah, maybe a little bit,” Jalen Brunson said when I asked him if the offense grew stale in the final minutes. “It could’ve been a lot smoother.”

The final timeout

With 27.7 seconds remaining, Harrison Barnes missed a spinning layup with Dallas leading, 94-92, and the Mavericks burnt their final timeout immediately before their last offensive possession. The defensive lineup for that possession was Brunson, Finney-Smith, Frank Ntilikina, Josh Green and Dwight Powell. Dallas used the timeout to substitute Porzingis back into the game, understandably wanting him on the court for the final offensive possession. I don’t think the timeout being used then affected Dallas in the game’s close; the question is whether Porzingis should be subbed out in late-game defensive settings at all. If the team was set up to switch everything, does Powell make more sense than the team’s best rim protector? This was obviously a situation where the Mavericks would’ve liked to have Maxi Kleber available.

The final offensive play

Dallas didn’t intend to drain the shot clock solely for a Porzingis post-up; that was his improvisation with the shot clock near expiration that caused him to be turning around and fading away unsuccessfully. Kidd said he meant for Brunson to get a switch, which he did, but the action didn’t start until eight seconds remained on the shot clock and the player switching onto him was De’Aaron Fox, not an overmatched big man.

“I don’t remember what was the play call, but what I saw on the final possession — and maybe I should’ve just let (Brunson) go to work — what I saw is that we didn’t have anything with three or four seconds left,” Porzingis says. “I knew I would be able to get a shot off, and I just went in there. I had pretty decent position. I looked at the tape. I think, if Fox doesn’t get his hands on the ball a little bit, and I fumble it for a second, I think I would’ve got a pretty good look. I think I would’ve been able to shoot over (Harrison) Barnes.”

In any manner, it was a terrible offensive possession when a made bucket would’ve ended the game.The decision to take a foul with 3.8 seconds remaining

Finney-Smith, the team’s best perimeter defender, fouled out when he purposefully committed his sixth after an inbounds with 4.3 seconds remaining. It burnt half a second from the game clock, leaving 3.8 seconds for the Kings on what ended up being the game-winning play. Taking an available foul on a final possession is most often smart basketball, and it usually disrupts the opponent’s plan; they either change from their ideal play call or run it again with the team having slight foresight into what’s about to happen. Still, instantly taking the foul at the cost of the team’s best defender while only burning the clock by a half-second isn’t ideal.

“(Finney-Smith fouling out) was a casualty,” Kidd said. “We talked about taking the foul when (the ball) first got inbounded. So we did. We saw what they were running. They didn’t have an opportunity to take a timeout.”

The defense on Metu’s game-winning 3

Sacramento runs the same play, but Fox, rather than Tyrese Haliburton, was the player who received the ball. When Finney-Smith fouled out, Fox had positioned himself in the backcourt. This time around, Haliburton is back there with Green face-guarding him. The defensive lineup: Brunson, Ntilikina, Powell, Green and Sterling Brown.

Ntilikina guards Fox too closely, and Fox beats him with his first step. Powell appropriately rotates over to prevent the layup, but Brunson, his back turned, doesn’t drag down onto the wide-open Metu in the corner. Would Porzingis rotating to the paint have made the pass more difficult? Fox has no trouble finding his open teammate, though, and Metu makes the shot. It doesn’t matter much to me that Metu is shooting below 30 percent on 3s this season; he had hit two already this game and the shot he took was wide open. Brunson should’ve been sprinting down to contest or force him into a shot. It didn’t happen.

That’s how Dallas lost a game it shouldn’t have.