Season 48, Game 70
San Antonio 94, Dallas 101
44-26, 6th in the West

As usual, context matters. Coming into tonight’s game, the Mavs were in a  bit of a swoon. Monta has been in a pretty bad shooting slump, Carlisle may or may not have called out the heart and passion of the team. The players just didn’t seem to be gelling. They had lost a couple of important games.

The Spurs on the other hand, were feeling pretty good, coming off some big wins in which they played very well. Knowing they had OKC back in San Antonio tomorrow night, this was an easy game to look past.

So context matters. The Mavs were at home and hungry for a win. And I don’t care who is playing, what year it is, what their records are: the Mavs will always get up for a game against the Spurs. They have their title, but they’ll always be chasing the Spurs’ legacy.

The game started out promising. The Spurs played a near-perfect first quarter, seemingly picking up where they were in Atlanta. Once agains the starters were rolling, the ball was zipping around, Kawhi was a defensive menace, and Splitter introduced the underhand scoop shot into his repertoire. The team was locked in, and a win seemed imminent.

Like that, it was gone. And when it went, it went fast.

While the personnel is certainly quite different, this Mavs team coached by Carlisle is well suited to stifle the Spurs’ offense. Somewhere in the 2nd quarter, the ball stopped moving, the passes were less crisp and led to turnovers (after zero in the 1st quarter), and the Mavs activity level jumped. The Spurs never matched it, and it was all downhill from there.

We should also mention the most obvious thing: the Spurs could just not make a shot. Some of this was a byproduct of that bad passing and lack of ball movement: a team is much less prone to make shots when they’re not wide open. But some of this was just bad luck, a “one of those nights” that the basketball gods strike every team with at some point in an 82-game season. Duncan missed bunnies at the rim; Leonard missed some easy mid-rangers; and 3 after 3 bounced high off the rim, to the tune of 8 for 28.

(AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

(AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

And Monta Ellis broke out of his slump and continued his torture of San Antonio. Apparently he’s been in a slump, but Spurs fans have never seen this. He might be the most randomly terrifying opponent we play. Leonard is an All-Word defender, but he’s not quite built right to guard really small and really quick PGs. They can still drive by him pretty easily, and once they do, they finish at the rim. He did well, and got some laugh-out-loud steals, but Monta was just locked in tonight.

Honestly, despite giving up the big lead, I’m not too worried about this game. I’m more interested in tomorrow night’s game against the Thunder, and how we play against Westbrook and his back-up band. That’s a team that we should absolutely crush right now, despite Westbrook’s brilliance. One-man teams don’t fare well against the Spurs. Given the scheduling, it was always likely that the team would go 1-1 in this 2-game stretch.

Plus, we get the Mavs at home this weekend. Payback can come soon enough.