March Basketball's interesting and important game continues Monday night for the Mavericks as they host the Utah Jazz. March becomes a wasteland for the NBA; Before the play-in tournament, this was the time of year when fringe teams competing for the lower seeds in a conference would start packing it up for the year. This appears to be no longer the case and the fringe playoff teams working hard has resulted in good basketball moving up and down among the packed playoff teams and the very best teams continuing to play solid basketball during what has historically been a slog. .
These Mavericks-jazz games are particularly appealing; A total of three match-ups after the All-Star break. Dallas has lost both the Christmas Day game and the first competition since the All-Star and has a chance to attempt a win tonight. The Jazz is still a very real possibility for a Dallas playoff opponent, so there's likely some gamemanship between winning against a team and showing all their cards that they can play multiple times.
The Jazz are currently the 1.5 point favorites as of this posting despite being a road team, although that could certainly change as we get closer to game time.
Slow down jazz shooters
Utah is one of the best teams in the league in terms of three point shooting. They are seventh in percentage and two in both attempts per game and makes per game. Dallas' hot shooting in the previous game affected the Jazz shooting somewhat, as they engaged with 42% of their distance efforts, while some of their best shooters couldn't hit the wide of a barn.
The Mavericks tried everything defensively against Utah and none of it worked for a sustained period. Zone Defense Dallas plays now and then can be eaten alive by this kind of team shooting.
Finding an Answer for Donovan Mitchell
These first two points are related as Mitchell carved the Mavericks from the back of the arc in the previous competition. Dallas has played three short scoring guards since returning from the All-Star break. Although the team clamped down on Steph Curry twice, Mitchell then scored on him with relative ease when D'Aron Fox scored. Mitchell will rely on a combination of Reggie Bullock and Dorian Finn-Smith to work for his basket.
Foul against a good defense
With the benefit of sight I can safely say that the referee in the last Utah game was garbage. Dallas shot a total of eight free throws and just one in the second half. The last two minute report released the next day indicated that there were incorrect non-calls in crunch time, so I feel comfortable saying that there were a lot of missed calls in non-crunch time as well.
It's up to Dallas to force the issue. Rudy Gobert may be an all-galaxy savior, but that shouldn't stop Luca Doncic, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Jalen Brunson from checking the paint. Dallas should slow down the iso-hunting against this defense and instead move the ball and move the ball to appear in the paint that way. I also think it's safe to say that Luca won't be shooting 8 out of 24 from the floor this time around.
How to see
The game starts at 7:30 p.m. and is available locally through Bali Sports Southwest or nationally through NBA League Pass.