Mavs-Kings Play-In Observations

Mavericks take care of the Kings in a dominant fashion, Memphis Grizzlies next

Photo by Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

We'll see if defense will win the Mavericks the championship, but it sure did win them a play-in game.

To their credit, despite the front office stirring up more turmoil and most of the fanbase ready to bury this disappointing season, the Mavericks players kept fighting, just like they’ve done all year.

The Mavericks were the better prepared, more motivated, and the team that executed their game plan better. They beat the Sacramento Kings 120–106 in their first play-in game. Now they travel to Memphis, where on Friday they'll need to beat the Grizzlies, another team trying to survive and reach the playoffs while navigating organizational change and adversity.

According to Nico Harrison, this win wasn’t just a feel-good way to end the season. Per the ESPN broadcast, Harrison said the team packed for an 8-day trip—they expect to beat the Grizzlies and face the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.

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Today’s notes:

1. Overwhelming Mavericks size

2. Klay Thompson’s takeover and redemption game (🎞️VIDEO)

3. A great shooting game from the re-shuffled guard rotation

4. An 'average' 27-9-3 AD game (🎞️VIDEO)

5. Small but meaningful sample

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1-Overwhelming Mavericks size

In my preview, I said this would be another clash of styles. Once again, Jason Kidd started a huge lineup with Naji Marshall as the point guard, P.J. Washington as the small forward, and two bigs, Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively II, in the frontcourt.

The Mavericks imposed their will from the start. They pushed the much smaller Kings out of their spots and out of their comfort zone.

DeMar DeRozan, a very reluctant three-point shooter, was chucking up threes early. Domantas Sabonis, who often bullied previous iterations of the Mavs in the paint, was swarmed by a much taller defender every time he caught the ball deep.

Another thing I mentioned in the preview was that both teams lack playmaking and a true point guard. In this game, against the Mavericks' length, that hurt the Kings much more than it did Dallas. Sabonis and LaVine tried to fill that gap for the Kings, but overmatched, they didn’t have the skill or focus needed to overcome the size disadvantage. They combined for 10 of the Kings’ 19 turnovers.

In a game where neither team played beautiful offense—in fact, it was often the opposite—the Mavericks did two things well: they shot the three at a very high clip(more on that soon) and consistently pressured the smaller Kings by getting to the line. Dallas had a size advantage across all positions. Marshall and Washington took advantage by driving the ball early, and Davis, after a slow 2-of-9 start, adapted his approach to get to the free-throw line. Below is the Four Factors Accounting breakdown—an advanced analytics formula that assigns net point value to each of the four key areas in an NBA game: shooting, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws - and you can see where the game was won.

Four Factors Accounting (source: ESPN Analytics)

2-Klay Thompson’s takeover and redemption game (🎞️VIDEO)

Last year, Thompson had a disappointing 0-for-10 shooting performance in a play-in game against Sacramento, leaving a sour taste to end his otherwise illustrious career as a Warrior.

This time around, in a different jersey, Thompson had one of his best games as a Maverick—going 8-of-11 from the field and scoring 23 points. He made four threes without a miss and totaled 16 points during a pivotal second-quarter run, when the Mavericks outscored the Kings 44–19 and built a 23-point lead by halftime.

3-A great shooting game from the re-shuffled guard rotation

Thompson wasn’t the only one who shot the three well. Kidd reshuffled his guard rotation, leaning even more into defense by playing Marshall at guard and giving minutes to Dante Exum and Brandon Williams over Spencer Dinwiddie, Max Christie, and Jaden Hardy. Dinwiddie—who led the Mavericks in total minutes and averaged 27 per game during the regular season—fell completely out of the rotation.

Williams and Exum didn’t just bring more dynamism with their drives, ball movement, and pace—they also knocked down their threes. Williams had another great game, making all three of his three-point attempts in the first half. His shooting, combined with a couple of late threes from Davis and Thompson’s outburst, basically sealed the win before the halftime buzzer.

The Mavericks’ mid-range-heavy, low three-point volume shot diet didn’t change in this game. But against an opponent with a similar shot distribution, and on a night they shot over 50 percent from three, it didn’t prove to be detrimental.

Shooting splits (source: Cleaning the Glass)

4-An 'average' 27-9-3 AD game