3 things as the Mavericks go cold in Detroit, 98-91

The Dallas Mavericks will go into the All-Star Break at 22-34. They lose to the Detroit Pistons in Detroit Wednesday night, with the low scoring 98-91 result pretty much telling it all: the Mavs went cold. They ended up shooting 38 percent from the field and were just 10-36 (under 28 percent) from three.

POINT GUARD MATCHUP GOES DETROIT’S WAY

Reggie Jackson (22 points) and Ish Smith (10 points in 20 minutes) dominated the Dallas PG duo of Deron Williams and Yogi Ferrell, who combined to shoot 6-22 from the field. Smith was key in Detroit building a big lead and Jackson put most of the finishing touches on Dallas late, despite spending a large portion of the game on the floor in apparent discomfort. The Pistons had a lot of success running Williams and others to death in high pick and roll, and defended Dallas’ PnR action very effectively at the other end.

ANOTHER GREAT DIRK GAME GOES TO WASTE

Nowitzki led all scorers with 24 points (13 of which came in the third quarter when Dallas tried to whittle away the lead Detroit had built), and grabbed 10 rebounds as well. Unexpectedly, Andre Drummond was not much of a factor for most of the game, as the Pistons big man got into foul trouble early and played just 19 minutes. I say “most of the game” because the middle portion of the fourth Drummond was huge in preventing Dallas from getting hot offensively. With Dirk out and Andrew Bogut — who returned from injury and produced an all-too-familiar stat line of 4 points, 8 boards off the bench — in his place, Andre Drummond camped out in the paint and kept Dallas from getting easy looks off the pick and roll.

MAVS GET TO REST

The only silver lining I can give is that an older, still-banged up club can get a chance to rest now. They will have eight days off before taking on the Timberwolves in Minnesota a week from Friday.