Mavericks increase physicality, become aggressors in second-half comeback against Kings

The scene before Wednesday’s game at the American Airlines Center between the Kings and Dallas Mavericks said a lot about how the night would play out.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave an unscheduled interview session with local reporters, offering support of head coach Jason Kidd, and saying on the record his team’s top priority in the offseason would be to retain pending free agent Kyrie Irving. Kidd, when asked if he planned on being the coach of the team next season, drew laughs from reporters in his pregame news conference.

“Did you guys ask me that question last year?” Kidd asked, making a nod to Dallas’ surprise run to the Western Conference finals in 2022. “(Expletive) no. So why would you ask it now?”

The subtext, of course, was that the Mavericks are in disarray. They mortgaged the future to add Irving at the trade deadline, yet they lost seven of their last eight games, going into Wednesday five games under-.500 and 11th in the Western Conference — outside of the play-in tournament.

But the Mavericks beat the Kings 123-119 while showing a sense of desperation Sacramento didn’t have, despite jumping out to an 11-point first-half lead. Dallas bounced back in a chaotic third quarter to outscore the Kings by 11, tying things going into the fourth.

Fittingly for the home team, whose owner said he would try to keep the star point guard, Irving scored 19 points in the fourth quarter, many of which came in spectacular fashion, leaving the Kings wondering what could have been.

Because for the second time since Sunday, Sacramento, with homecourt advantage in Round 1 already clinched, had a chance to win a game while the No. 2 seed Memphis Grizzlies lost. The loss to the Spurs on Sunday and Wednesday’s loss in Dallas may have ultimately put the Kings in the third seed for good.

The Kings are two games back with two more games left in the regular season. There’s still a chance for Sacramento to overtake Memphis, but it would take two Grizzlies losses paired with two Kings wins in the final games Friday against the Golden State Warriors and Sunday versus the first-place Denver Nuggets. The Kings hold the tiebreaker by way of conference record.

“Regardless of what other teams do, this was a game that — especially the way we played in the first half — we should have come out and handle business and figure out a way to finish this one,” Kings guard Kevin Huerter said. “I still think we’re building the right habits. I think our mindset in the last two games has been really good. We’re ramping up to how we need to play in these playoffs.”

Head coach Mike Brown said he sensed a similar level of desperation from the previous night’s opponent when the Kings beat the New Orleans Pelicans, who momentarily pushed into the No. 8 seed with their win over Memphis on Wednesday, and were also playing for their postseason lives.

“Every game, whether a team is desperate or not, you can learn from,” Brown said. “What I took from this game going into the playoffs is they upped their physicality in the second half, they reached (in) and awful lot, and I think some of the times they reached they were fouls, but we didn’t get the call. Deservingly so, because we weren’t as aggressive or as strong with the ball as we should have been.

“So from that standpoint, watching the flow of the game, in terms of which (team) brings the most aggression or physicality is gonna have a chance to win. That’s a lesson you can take away from this because they surely were the aggressors and the most physical team in the second half.”

De’Aaron Fox finished with a team-high 28 points, while Domantas Sabonis recorded his 14th triple-double of the season with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, but the Kings were minus-14 in his 35 minutes on the floor, largely because he was there when Dallas made its runs in the third and fourth quarters. Huerter had 14 points.

Tim Hardaway Jr., who engaged in some healthy, competitive trash talk with Fox throughout the game, made five of his eight 3s to finish with 24 points, while Luka Doncic had 29 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.

Irving and Christian Wood (14 points) were the only Mavericks to score in the fourth quarter. Irving had one play where he spun away from Fox and then hit a stepback 3 against Alex Len on a play that only Irving could make. He also hit a moon-scraping 3 from the left corner. He had a two 3s where the Kings were late to get a hand in his face.

“Some of his transition looks, we gotta be better,” Huerter said. “I think there were a couple times where hit 3s and we just lost him, and we gotta be more aware and not just run back to the paint.”

Said Fox: “I think he made tough shots. We blitzed him a little bit, but he had two late in the shot clock, fadeaways, fading out of the corner. Nothing you could do about that. He got it going and you tip your hat to him.”

The Kings were playing with energy and pace in the first half. They looked like the team that had two days of rest, as the Mavericks did, not one that played the night prior.

But it flipped in the second half when Dallas went on a 19-7 run to open the third quarter, erasing Sacramento’s lead and changing the tenor of the contest.

“They hit us first,” Fox said, “and just kind of kept it going throughout the whole second half. So they did a great job being the aggressor.”

Wednesday marked the last back-to-back of the season for Sacramento. The Kings finished 8-7 on the second legs of back-to-backs, and next will host the Warriors on Friday in what should be a third consecutive game against a desperate team playing for postseason positioning.

By the time the playoffs begin on the weekend of April 15, the Kings hope these late-season games will have them prepared for when the stakes are higher and the desperation rises, as it was in Dallas.

“Usually, when you’re the aggressor, especially defensively, the basketball gods seem to be on your side and do things in your favor,” Brown said. “And it showed tonight in the second half.”