Detroit gladly puts its finger on Dallas’ sore spot

In the case of the Mavericks, it’s becoming a mistake to consider easy games easy. They are the ones who are putting their face on it the worst this season. He had losses to the Magic and Rockets behind him and capped off the hat trick with one against the Pistons. The Detroiters were, at the start of the day, the worst in the NBA (5-18), and are revitalized by the Texan magic touch. Dallas doesn’t know how to read games like these, in which he is supposed to be able to open up more to do some tests -necessary- and be able to reserve minutes for Doncic -who needs them- instead of suffering to exhaustion. This Thursday he played to an extension, an even crueler punishment. 131-125 It was the final score at Little Caesars Arena after the Pistons set up facilities for the comeback.

Many are looking to France this year to see what Victor Wembanyama is up to. It is the thought in the mind when thinking about the reservoirin being able to lose to conquer a better place in the next draft. It’s nothing new for the Pistons, they’ve been in that spiral for a few years. And not with those. The Mavs are becoming that rival to the teams below that they can be happy with (always within the thought of laxity when fighting all sides). If we put the face of their last pick as number 1, we get Cade Cunningham, a player who couldn’t even get dressed for this appointment because he’s still injured. There were too many conducive ingredients to Jason Kidd, who has yet to put the signed Kemba Walker to play, so that putting it all together would make sense. If we do the mix (France, Detroit, draftcustomization errors, players in question…) is when the high comedy comes: the protagonist of the evening was Killian Hayes, the most criticized project in recent yearswith the two triples that made the difference +6.

The Mavericks went to free throws as an escape in the critics. They gave a lot of value to those sentences to explain, at the end of the battle, the reasons that had led them to fall. It’s true that the number can explode in your face if you stare at it (14/29), but there is the sin of reducing and simplifying the big issues. The guests let themselves go in the first quarter and this is explained by the lack of tension at the start of the game, that’s fine, but they repeated and even worsened their defense to nothing in the third and then suffered penalties to rebuild everything on they had worked on. They came back from eight points in the last minute and a half of regulation and tied to lose later, leaving Luka Doncic with 35+5+10+3 in the statistics with the crooked gesture like the one in the photo illustrating this piece.

At the start of the game we saw that lack of commitment we were talking about earlier. Letting the minutes go by without putting all possible strength into defending the basket. Doncic was easy on offense, releasing them well so that Hardaway went to the outside or Powell to the inside. Comedies were coming out. Also for the Pistons, of course, since there are no impediments. Bogdanovic (22) at the start and Ivey (16) shortly afterwards knew how to handle these situations well. During the minutes of that first and second sleeve, the Mavs were relying on Hardaway, who is recovering from a very serious injury and is averaging just 32% shooting accuracy, so the plan had to change if they wanted the victory . He didn’t do it enough. Detroit extended the lead with an Imperial run from the perimeter, with three 3-pointers by Bogdanovic, one by Bey, and one by Burks putting them up 12, while prospects at the other end weren’t so bright. The contrast with expert marksmen was not small: Green, 0/2; Bullock, 1/3; Finney-Smith, 2/4; Bertans was inconsequential and Dinwiddie took just two shots – total, not triples – in 28 minutes. And when they got close it was useless. First, to cancel that benefit. A former Pistons like Christian Wood (25) put the field goal that gave them the lead. It all stretched again and at 1:47 the locals were ahead again, this time by eight points. Game reaction, with triples from Hardaway and Doncic and an inside cut from Bullock that Kleber sees perfectly, to equalize. And they remained in love and company in overtime until Hayes, the renegade, appeared, with two almost identical shots, from the front area of ​​the perimeter but with a right heel (being left-handed, more merit), to give Detroit the upper hand.