Boston Celtics throttle Dallas at home, 124-95

The Dallas Mavericks fell to the Boston Celtics, 125-94 on Thursday night, bringing their seven game win streak to a halt on national television. The Celtics looked good early, Luka Doncic looked off, and the Mavericks never had much of a chance in this game.

This one one contest where the lack of depth for Dallas, particularly with injuries to Josh Green and Dorian Finney-Smith, was glaringly apparent. Head coach Jason Kidd had to play a number of guys like Jaden Hardy and McKinley Wright getting minutes in a game where they would have firm seats on the bench in normal circumstances.

Josh and I talk about how the seven game win stretch was valuable but also a bit of a scheduling oddity given how bad the teams were that the Mavericks played. We walk through the starters and how ineffective they were, the bland and predictable isolation offense against the Celtics, and how Dallas seemed surprised by the level of defense Boston displayed. The Dallas bench struggled to do much of anything and this game was a good reminder of what the outlook for Dallas might be against very good teams.

Reggie Bullock is of particular concern at this point, with his attempts being down along with his percentage. When Dallas was cooking with gas in the latter half of the season last year, he was taking eight threes a game at a very good percentage. The attempts being down and the percentage being down with his minutes remaining high catches up to Dallas in very obvious ways.

We finish talking about the weirdness of this Dallas team but also the weirdness and weakness of the Western Conference. The Mavericks may putter along better than most of their contemporaries simply because Doncic is that good, despite having a really flawed roster.

We talk about all that and more on this episode of Mavs Moneyball After Dark.

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