The Dallas Mavericks will be going for their season-best seventh consecutive victory when they visit the Toronto Raptors on Saturday night.
The teams enter the matchup after being on opposite sides of blowouts in their games on Thursday.
Dallas defeated the Washington Wizards 137-101 to open a three-game road trip. They have won 10 of their past 11 games.
The Raptors had their four-game home winning streak end in a 129-92 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Mavericks’ win featured the first triple-double of the season for Luka Doncic, who had 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
The 78th triple-double of his career tied him with Wilt Chamberlain and James Harden for seventh in league history.
“I finally got one,” Doncic said. “Just to be up there mentioned with those great names, it’s unbelievable to me. I never take it for granted.”
Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 25 points despite playing only 25. Doncic played 32 1/2 minutes in a game the Mavericks led by as many as 42 points. Eight Mavericks scored in double figures.
“First of all, I think we have a lot of depth,” Doncic said. “Anybody that steps on the court can produce a lot of things. Everybody knows their role. Chemistry, I think, is one of the most important things in teams like this. And we have it. Everybody gets along. And it’s just fun to play with these guys on the floor.”
Doncic also had two steals and one blocked shot.
“When you talk about Luka’s ability to have the handprint that he can have on the game in a sense of passing, rebounding and scoring, he does all three things at a very high level,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. “Right now, he’s shooting the ball extremely well, and when he sees the double-team, he understands, as the quarterback, who’s open and how he can get the ball to them, and he’s done that at a high level.”
The Raptors can look at the clinic put on by the Thunder as a learning experience. Oklahoma City had 15 steals and forced Toronto into 20 turnovers.
“Sometimes we make turnovers recklessly, and sometimes it’s because of the other defense,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I felt tonight it was their defense. They made us turn the ball over, so that there’s going to be a lot of good film for us to learn for this.”
It did not help that Jakob Poeltl (illness) was out for the game. Jonathan Mogbo took advantage of Poeltl’s absence and scored a career-best 17 points off the bench.
“(Poeltl is) really good for us in pick and rolls, setting screens, freeing up people,” Rajakovic said. “He’s just like settling force for us but, to be honest with you, it was really good for me tonight to see Jonathan Mogbo in an expanded role in, you know, in different matchups. He started in the second half and I thought that he had overall a good game tonight. But yeah, we missed (Poeltl) tonight.”
RJ Barrett also had 17 points for the Raptors and grabbed 11 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season. Scottie Barnes (12 points, 12 rebounds) had his sixth double-double of the season.
–Field Level Media