‘A Cautionary Tale’: Porzingis Sits as Pacers Edge Mavs
The Dallas Mavericks on Sunday likely learned a COVID-19-related lesson thanks to center Kristaps Porzingis. And no thanks to KP, they learned some more in a scrimmage loss to the Indians Pacers in the Orlando NBA bubble.
“He was very contrite and really felt bad about letting the team down,” coach Rick Carlisle said in revealing that Porzingis missed a mandatory coronavirus test. “Something like this is something that I think all of us can take as a cautionary tale. We’ve just got to remember that the details of the situation that we’re involved in are very, very important.”
The breech of NBA protocol left Porzingis “contrite” (Carlisle’s word) and left Dallas short-handed. But while Porzingis will spend time in quarantine until Monday, Luka Doncic spent his 24 minutes Sunday dazzling the Pacers in what ended up being a 118-111 Indy win.
Doncic was unstoppable early (in his first 13 minutes he was good for 12 points) as Dallas forged a large early lead and led the Mavs with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists. In the end, Luka's plus/minus wasn't good enough and he shot just 6-of-14. But even his imperfect efforts are ... well, dazzling.
Maxi Kleber - starting in KP’s place - pitched in 18 points and six boards for the Mavericks.
The Pacers, however, featured four starters who scored 15 or more points in limited minutes, victimizing a Dallas defense still working to reach its offensive level.
For the Pacers, T.J. Warren scored 20 points, Malcolm Brogdon 17, Victor Oladipo 16 and Myles Turner 15, with with eight rebounds, three assists, and two blocks.
Said Maxi: "We can look at our mistakes today and learn from them, and work on them at practice tomorrow.''
Luka led the Mavericks to an early 15-6 lead and Dallas closed the first quarter with a 9-2 run to take a 37-26 edge. The Mavs also led at the half and didn’t surrender the lead until Indy crafted a 7-0 run in the third.
"The first half was pretty good and the second half we really struggled,'' Carlisle said after the game. "Their physicality affected us, they broke us down a lot defensively and they broke down our offense, too. There were a lot of positives in the first half ... and the second half was disappointing. ... We know we can score, but we have to have the same type of emphasis getting better defensively.''
The Mavs have one more scrimmage at 7:30 CT July 28 against Philly before resuming the season with their first of eight seeding games against Houston on July 31 at 6 CT. Hopefully, all hands will be on-deck - and properly tested.
“He was very contrite,'' Carlisle said of Porzingis, "and really felt bad about letting the team down.''
