Luka Doncic, Dallas rally past Utah in series clincher, will face Suns next
The Dallas Mavericks advance to the Western Conference semifinals after beating the Utah Jazz 98-96 in Game 6 Thursday night. It was a closely contested battle that came down to the final shot as Jazz forward Bojan Bogdanovic missed what would’ve been a game-winning 3-pointer to extend this series.
The Mavericks got a combined 48 points out of Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson, while Spencer Dinwiddie tacked on 19 points off the bench. The Jazz carried a 10-point lead heading into halftime, but couldn’t finish it off in the second half as Doncic started to catch fire after the break. Donovan Mitchell had 23 points in the loss, while Jordan Clarkson put up 15 points and six rebounds off the bench. The Jazz will head into the offseason, while the Mavericks will now face the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the second round.
Here are three takeaways from the Dallas’ series-clinching win over Utah.
1. Not about how you start, but how you finish
If you stopped watching this game at halftime you would probably assume that Utah held on to win this game based on how Dallas was playing. The Mavericks shot just 38.6 percent from the field, and an even worse 16.7 percent from deep. Doncic was held to just nine points on 3 of 8 from the field, and the Mavericks couldn’t buy a shot from practically anywhere on the floor.
Meanwhile, after a similarly slow start in the first quarter, the Jazz began to figure things out in the second quarter and took advantage of mismatches on offense and attack the rim. Utah was smart in hunting Doncic on offense, which resulted in several easy buckets around the rim. At the half, the Jazz held a 12-point lead and despite the injury concerns leading up to this game, Mitchell looked like he was unbothered by those quad bruises.
And then the third quarter started. Just for some context, Doncic ranks sixth in the league in points scored in the third quarter this season (8.3), and in the …