Sure, the Dallas Mavericks won a barnburner against the Golden State Warriors Sunday night, defeating Steve Kerr’s squad 143-133. But forget about the score for a moment. How about that shooting from behind the arc?
The Mavs made a season-high 21 threes, and the Warriors went even further, knocking down 27 shots from behind the arc, going 50 percent on 3-point attempts. In fact, the Warriors shot better from the 3-point line than they did inside it. Which caused them to take (and make) more threes than twos. The two teams combined for an NBA record 48 3-pointers in one game.
Everyone pitched in to create this wondrous offensive masterpiece. Only Kyrie Irving and Spencer Dinwiddie shot less than 50 percent on threes (1-4 and 0-1). Irving gets a pass because he did everything else really well.
Luka Doncic pitched in with six threes, and Klay Thompson dropped a season high in points as he battled it out with Seth Curry as they both made seven threes apiece (though Curry took two more). P.J. Washington hit a couple, Quentin Grimes hit four, and even Olivier-Maxence Prosper hit a shot from deep. For the Warriors, Curry’s aforementioned shooting got partnered with five threes from Draymond Green (!) and Andrew Wiggins, three from Buddy Hield, two from Jonathan Kuminga, four from Lindy Waters III, and one more from Brandin Podziemski.
The Mavericks made two more threes than the Warriors in the first quarter. Then the Warriors heated up for the rest of the game. However, Dallas made more than enough threes to stay in it, and never relinquished their lead after they got it back at the 11:01 mark in the first quarter. Either way, 3-pointers were the name of the game for the entire 48 minutes.
Though defense was left to be desired this game, this was still a wonderful showing from everyone, whether we’ve gotten used to seeing this kind of play from them or not.
Obviously, this kind of game isn’t going to be a consistent theme. It would nice, however, to see this hot shooting continue at home as the Mavericks face off against their recent playoff rival the Los Angeles Clippers.
Tim MacMahon, ESPN Staff WriterJan 17, 2025, 12:31 AM ETCloseJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regula
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