Stats Rundown: 3 takeaways from the Mavericks’ loss to the Timberwolves Untitled

The Dallas Mavericks lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-106.

Dallas’ inexplicable ability to lose to teams with stacked injury reports is something beyond a fluke at this point. Despite being without Karl Anthony-Towns, Rudy Gobert, or important rotation piece Kyle Anderson, the Wolves victory was hardly in question for much of the game.

Dallas will face the same squad Wednesday, and can hopefully muster a better performance.

2: ejections for the Mavericks

Dallas, desperate for an excuse to explain their most recent loss to a team missing nearly all of its star power, got it in the third quarter when Luka Doncic and coach Jason Kidd got ejected after an exchange with the referees. The game wasn’t necessarily close at the time (Dallas trailed by 20), but we’ve seen this team catch fire. Any hope of a spark was extinguished with the loss of their leading… everything, in Doncic. It was Kidd’s second ejection as Mavericks’ head coach.

5:13: The stretch of time where Dallas scored two points

After battling from a 19-19 draw to build an eight-point, 37-29 lead, Dallas’ offense fell apart, scoring just a single basket in a five-minute and 13-second span. It was a chunk of game time that saw Minnesota score 20 points of their own. It contributed to what ended up being just a 14 point quarter for Dallas and the early death knell, as the Mavericks never had the juice to really make it competitive the rest of the game, lingering behind by double digits for the majority of the contest.

36: 20-point game streak comes to an end

With his ejection at the two-minute mark of the third quarter, Doncic and his 19 points saw his 36-game streak of scoring 20 or more points come to an end. His 36-game run ties him with Bob Pettit for 10th all-time. It’s one more game than James Harden’s 35-game streak in 2017-18 and the longest such streak since George Gervin in the 1981-82 season.

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