Stats Rundown: 3 numbers from the Mavericks’ loss to the Bulls

The Mavericks lost to the Bulls 118-108. They were without Luka Doncic, who leads the team in points, rebounds, and assists. Jalen Brunson led the Mavericks with 31. No other Maverick had more than 16. Dallas falls to 2-4 on the season, and has yet to win consecutive games this year. It’s the same record they had through six games in Doncic’s rookie season.

Here are three stats from the loss to the Bulls. Be forewarned: they are bad, because the Mavericks played bad.

27: The number of free throws the Bulls made.

That’s the same number of times the Mavericks went to the charity stripe total. They only made 19. The Bulls didn’t benefit from an obscene amount of calls, they shot 30 free throws. They just made theirs. Mathematically, Dallas wouldn’t have won if they hit every free throw they took, but the misses definitely changed the dynamic of the game. It’s going to be tough for the Mavericks to win games if they continue to shoot 70% from the free throw line.

26.2: The Mavericks 3-point shooting percentage.

Dallas came into this game shooting 31.7 percent from behind the arc. That’s not good, but tonight was even worse. Maxi Kleber, Josh Richardson, and Brunson all shot well from deep. The rest of the team was a disaster, led by Tim Hardaway Jr., who went 2-of-12 on 3-pointers. The Mavericks have a roster that’s built to shoot threes, and if they don’t fall, it’s going to be a long season.

39: The number of points Zach LaVine scored.

LaVine lit up the Mavericks from all over the floor. His 39 points are a season high for a Mavericks’ opponent, which so far has included players such as Devin Booker, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Paul George, and Jimmy Butler. Dallas has typically struggled against opposing bigs due to their limited front court, but LaVine figured out a way to give the Mavericks’ wings a terrible night on the defensive end. LaVine is a talented scorer, but Dallas needs to find a way to slow down talented wing scorers, because there are a lot of them in the NBA.

Here’s the postgame podcast, Mavs Moneyball After Dark. If you can’t see the embed below “More from Mavs Moneyball”, click here. And if you haven’t yet, subscribe by searching “Mavs Moneyball podcast” into your favorite podcast app.