Dallas finished the preseason undefeated.
In what has to be the most surprising of their four preseason wins, the Mavericks without Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Reggie Bullock took down the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks 114-103. The Bucks played some of their starters, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jru Holiday and Brook Lopez.
It was a fun game to watch, as the Mavericks backups put on a show and played extremely hard from opening tip to final buzzer. Seemingly every Maverick that played had a cool play or entertaining highlight.
Let’s go to the three stats we noticed.
30: Number of Mavericks assists
Dallas entered its final preseason game averaging 30 assists per game and the Mavericks hit that number once again in the win against the Bucks.
While we still try to figure out what a Jason Kidd-coached Mavericks offense looks like, it appears there will be lots of passing and sharing of the ball. There were eight Mavericks who had at least two assists and four who had four or more.
Not only was that ball movement pleasing to the eye, it was also effective — the Mavericks shot 45 percent from the floor and 36 percent from three, with those numbers dipping slightly in garbage time.
11: Points scored by Sterling Brown
Brown had by far his best preseason game, scoring 11 points on nine shots, going 3-of-6 from three. Not all of Brown’s threes were spot-up jumpers, as he also canned an off-the-bounce three from the top of the three point line in the first half.
It was good to see Brown productive, as the Mavericks need him to be a key cog off their bench this season. He also finished with five rebounds and four assists and zero turnovers.
39: Three pointers taken by the Mavericks
There’s been a lot of talk about how many threes the Mavericks are going to shoot this season, with Kidd hinting at the Mavericks taking less than they have under former coach Rick Carlisle.
That has caused some concern, considering the Mavericks roster is mostly stand-still, spot up shooters. Thankfully, the Mavericks are still taking enough. The rate is considerably lower in the preseason, but a lot of that has to do with the undrafted free agents and end of the roster hopefuls that got a lot of minutes in the second half of games. When the main guys have played, the Mavericks have shot enough.
The team shot 39 total tonight, but the starters comprised of 18 of those 39 attempts and that’s without Doncic, Porzingis and Hardaway. Hopefully this is a non-issue when the real games start next week.