NBA Early Preview – San Antonio Spurs at Dallas Mavericks
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
The San Antonio Spurs (17-9) have had a terrible December for an NBA title defender. Tomorrow, they will travel to Dallas hoping to turn things around against the division rival Mavericks (19-8) at AmericanAirlines Arena (8:30 p.m. Eastern).
The Spurs have lost four of their last six games heading into tonight’s game against the Blazers. They went to OT against the Los Angeles Lakers (December 12) and Memphis Grizzlies (December 17), but struggled from the free throw line and wound up losing both.
Against Memphis, the Spurs were 13 of 27 from the stripe; Tim Duncan was responsible for ten of those misses, going 5 of 15.
On the other side, the Mavs have gone 6-3 in December, but have lost to the upper echelon teams (Golden State and Memphis). Dallas continues to boast the best offense in the league, averaging just over 110 points per game; however, they were held to just 98 by the solid defense of Golden State.
The Mavs recently traded for point guard Rajon Rondo from the Boston Celtics, making the biggest move of the season, so far. The Mavs gave up a king’s ransom for the NBA’s assists leader, sending Brandan Wright, Jae Crowder, Jameer Nelson, a first round pick, and a second round pick to Boston, in return.
There’s no official word of whether Rondo will make his debut against the Spurs, but expect the point guard to provide a boost to an already prolific offense when he takes the floor.
San Antonio has won seven of the last ten meetings against Dallas. However, with the aging Spurs having to play on back-to-back nights (against two tough teams), look for the rested Mavericks – who haven’t played since Wednesday – to take this one at home.
(Photo credit:Â Keith Allison from Baltimore, USA (00033631) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
