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The Dallas Mavericks (21-39) dropped their third straight game and their 13th in the last 15, 100-87, to the Oklahoma City Thunder (47-15) on Sunday at American Airlines Center.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander does, scoring a game-high 30 points in 33 minutes on 12-of-20 shooting for the Thunder, while Caleb Martin led the Mavs, because, hell, someone had to score points in this one, with 18.
Those two were freebies, because we’ve got five piping hot stats coming out of the oven for you, from the latest loss Dallas threw on the pile on Sunday.
32-16: Thunder’s close to the first quarter
After the Mavericks played pretend at existing in the same league as the Thunder for the game’s first four minutes, Oklahoma City blew the doors open on the game with a 12-0 run that took just 2:09 of game time to execute. Dallas head coach Jason Kidd called a timeout to stop the bloodletting, but the wheels had already come off. The Thunder outscored the Mavericks 32-16 over the last 9:56 of the first quarter to take a 36-25 lead after one, leaving Dallas in a position where they were trying for the rest of the game to claw back to within contention.
Chet Holmgren led all scorers with 10 points in the first quarter, including a dunk on a nifty drive-and-dish from Isaiah Hartenstein to cap Oklahoma City’s early 12-0 run. No Dallas Mavericks scored more than four points in the opener. Dallas turned the ball over six times in the quarter, leading to eight Thunder points. Oklahoma City came into the game first in the NBA in points scored off opponents’ turnovers, at more than 23 points per contest.
9: Moussa Cisse rebounds in his first 6:55 on the floor
Here’s one from the statistical oddities file. No doubt aided by the fact that Dallas started the game shooting 13-of-36 from the floor, Moussa Cisse gobbled up nine rebounds in his first 6:55 of playing time on Sunday. Three of those nine boards came on the offensive glass.
Cisse finished the game with 12 rebounds in 21 minutes, while going 0-of-1 from the floor in the loss. He averaged 12.9 rebounds per game in the eight games he played with the Texas Legends in the NBA D-League this year, and came into Sunday’s game averaging 4.6 boards in just under 12 minutes per appearance in NBA action.
4: Thunder first-half 3-pointers
And here’s one from the moral victory file. The Mavericks somehow managed to outscore the Thunder 24-22 in the second quarter to go into halftime down just 58-49. Oklahoma City was in the freezer from 3-point range in the aberration of a first-half, shooting just 4-of-18 (22.2%) from beyond the arc.
Was this outcome attributable to the Mavs’ furious brand of defense along the perimeter to start the game? Some questions are better left unanswered, but we believe you know the answer. Dallas did sit back in a zone look for much of the first half to help keep Oklahoma City’s iso-heavy offense at bay. It also kept the Thunder from living at the free-throw line against an outmanned Dallas bunch. The Thunder shot just seven free throws in the first half.
4:50: Mavericks’ third-quarter scoreless stretch
The Mavericks suffered through nine straight offensive possessions that yielded (checks notes) zero points in one stretch of the third quarter. Brandon Williams blew through the Oklahoma City defense with 9:25 left in the third to cut the Thunder lead to 64-55, and Dallas didn’t score again until Max Christie’s 3-pointer along the right wing with 4:40 left in the frame. Christie stole a bad pass from Gilgeous-Alexander, then got the ball back in rhythm from Ryan Nembhard to stop the bleeding, as the Thunder lead swelled back to 16, 71-55, before Christie’s timely 3-ball.
59: Consecutive away games of 20 or more points for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
And why not one from the file of stats we didn’t know anyone was keeping? With the first of two free throws with 1:50 remaining in the third quarter, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander eclipsed the 20-point plateau in his 59 consecutive road game, passing the great Wilt Chamberlain for most away games in a row scoring 20 or more. He now needs three more consecutive 20-point games to tie and four more to break Chamberlain’s record for consecutive games (home or away) with 20 or more.
Gilgeous-Alexander had 25 at the end of the third quarter against the Mavs and ended the night with a game-high 30 on 12-of-20 shooting. The Mavs trailed 83-69 after three quarters and didn’t seem all that worried about chipping away at the Thunder lead in the foregone conclusion of the fourth quarter.