Dallas Mavs' Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving 'Set Tone' in Blowout Win to Start 4-Game Road Trip
NEW ORLEANS – Coming off a blowout win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday where the Dallas Mavericks put up 144 points – their highest non-overtime point total in a game since 1986 – we expected to see similar results on Sunday, as Dallas took on the New Orleans Pelicans to start a four-game road trip ... and those expectations were met.
The Mavs' dynamic duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving dominated the Pelicans en route to a 136-124 win that wasn't nearly as close as that final score might indicate. Dallas led by as many as 29 points on the night, making it to where Doncic didn't have to play in the fourth quarter. The Mavs' superstar finished with 30 points, four rebounds and nine assists on 11-18 shooting in just 28 minutes of action, adding to what has already been an impressive early-season league MVP campaign.
Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving combined for 65 points in the Dallas Mavericks' 136-124 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.
Dalton Trigg, DallasBasketball.com
"I think we're playing unselfish basketball," Doncic said. "We're just sharing the ball. We knew they would have the low-man early there, so there were a lot of corner 3s for us. We got them up, 53 [3-point attempts]. Not all of them, but most of them were really good shots. That's what we have to do [going forward]."
As good as Doncic was, Irving was even better, finishing with a game-high 35 points to go with six rebounds and seven assists. He shot 13-20 from the field and 7-10 from deep – including a buzzer-beater from the corner to give the Mavs a 67-54 lead heading into halftime.
In eight games, Irving is averaging 23 points, 4.4 rebounds and 6.8 assists, which is his highest assist mark since 2018-19 when he averaged 6.9 with the Boston Celtics. He's shooting 45.9 percent overall and 40 percent from deep. He's clicking on all cylinders, not only with Doncic, but with all of his teammates, and he credits the Mavs' newfound fast pace as the main reason why.
"It's easy to play that way when you're not turning the ball over, and you're keeping the other team off the free throw line, you're getting stops consecutively, and you have spurts of four or five minutes where a play isn't being called," Irving said. "It's a constant pace. We're running to our spots and remembering the little details that make us a great squad."
During the summer, Mark Cuban stressed that his team had zero issues with Doncic and Irving last season, despite the Mavs plummeting at the end of the year and missing the playoffs for the first time since Doncic's rookie season. Instead, Cuban claimed that there were players around the star duo who weren't accepting of their roles. That certainly has not been the case so far this season, as the Mavs are gelling as a unit from top to bottom and playing an unselfish brand of basketball.
"I think everyone is being unselfish," Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said. "When you look at Luka and Kai, Kai didn't have to finish the Clippers game, and tonight Luka didn't have to finish this game, so I thought our two leaders set the tone. But just unselfish, playing with the pass, and then our pace is different from what we're used to. So the guys have really bought into it and trust it that we can play faster and also play with the pass, so you saw that tonight and you saw that against the Clippers."
The Mavs are off to their best start in nearly 20 years at 8-2 after 10 games, and they'll stay right where they are with a chance to make it back-to-back wins over the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center on Tuesday. If Doncic and Irving are clicking the same way they were tonight, it's hard to imagine things going any differently for the Mavs the second time around.
