NBA Early Preview – Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Clippers
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
After being crushed by the Detroit Pistons (108-95) last Wednesday, the Dallas Mavericks (26-11) will travel to Los Angeles tomorrow to meet the Clippers (24-11) at the Staples Center (3:30 p.m. Eastern).
Both teams sit second in their respective divisions and have similar records. However, the Clippers have two things going for them which Dallas does not. First, the Clippers have won seven of their last ten meetings against Dallas; and second, they have been very good at home (16-5, versus just 8-7 on the road).
Los Angeles is led by Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, who combine for 40.4 PPG and 14.5 APG. The duo has the Clippers sitting as the fifth-highest scoring team in the NBAÂ (106.5 PPG).
Most recently, the team crushed its Staples Center roommates, the Lakers, 114-89, on Wednesday.
“The ball movement was incredible,” forward Matt Barnes said about the Clippers’ performance against the Lakers. “Blake and Chris were finding everybody.”
The Clippers starting lineup outscored the Lakers’ starters by 44 in the one-sided affair.
Tomorrow, the Clippers will be playing a Mavericks team that plays a similar run-and-gun style of basketball. The Mavs are the second-highest scoring team in the league (109.1 PPG), and their offense has only improved since acquiring Rajon Rondo from the Celtics.
In ten games with Rondo at the point, Dallas is 7-3 and has been held under 100 points just twice. (Though, those were in the last two games.)
(Photo credit: Danny Bollinger (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
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.
