Stats Rundown: 3 numbers from the Mavericks overtime loss to the Lakers

The Dallas Mavericks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 107-104 in overtime Wednesday night in Dallas. It was a baffling game from start to finish, with some incredibly sloppy and ugly basketball.

Unfortunately for the Mavericks, they made one too many ugly play and Lakers had just enough to get past the finish line, thanks to their rookie Austin Reaves hitting a career high 5-of-6 from three and scoring 15 points.

Let’s just get to the numbers. They’re bad numbers.

11.7%: Three point percentage from the four starters around Jalen Brunson

The Mavericks shot 27.3 from three as a team, a putrid number, but the starters outside of Jalen Brunson were truly horrible. Dorian Finney-Smith, Reggie Bullock, Kristaps Porzingis combined to go 2-of-17 from three.

Finney-Smith and Porzingis at least showed some things on the offensive end, with Finney-Smith scoring 11 and Porzingis scoring 23. Neither shot well, but at leas they did something. Reggie Bullock, who had people taking victory laps after his 15 point game against the Memphis Grizzlies last week, scored zero points on 0-for-4 shooting in 21 minutes. It’s the second scoreless outing for Bullock in his past four games. Awful. Absolutely awful.

2-for-9: Shooting for Kristaps Porzingis from mid-range

In a game where the Lakers played only two big men the entire night, and one of the two only played eight minutes (DeAndre Jordan), it’s unacceptable that Kristaps Porzingis shot four shots at the rim while taking nine mid-range shots and missing seven of them.

Outside of one dunk in the fourth quarter, Porzingis was all jumper in the fourth and overtime. It was really disappointing to not see him take advantage of a small Lakers lineup. He just has to be better, consistently, throughout a game.

36.8%: Overall shooting percentage for Tim Hardaway Jr.

Tim Hardaway Jr. had another ghastly shooting night, bailed out by a couple of difficult, awful shots later in the game. Hardaway’s shot selection was all-time bad tonight, taking numerous contested jumpers off the dribble with zero ball movement preceding it.

Hardway hasn’t had a game shooting 50 percent or better from the field since the Dec. 1 win against the New Orleans Pelicans. Before that, it was Nov. 15 against the Denver Nuggets. So Hardaway as two 50 percent or better shooting performances in a month. To make matters worse, he only had two other games in that stretch where he was above 45 percent from the floor.

Hardaway is in a bad, bad place. Entering tonight’s game, he was shooting 45.2 percent on two pointers, his worst number since the season he got traded to Dallas. The Mavericks need to figure out a way to get Hardaway easier looks closer to the basket, so he’s not living and dying by his jumper every single night.

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