Luka Doncic registered 22 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists for his third triple-double of the season as the Mavericks registered their season-best sixth straight win.
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The Dallas Mavericks ended a seven game winning streak of the Chicago Bulls in the NBA fixture at American Airlines Center on Sunday. Luka Doncic registered 22 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists for his third triple-double of the season as the Mavericks registered their season-best sixth straight win. Doncic scored eight of his 23 shot attempts from the floor to rack up 22 points in 35 minutes. He struggled shooting in the first quarter but then recovered as the game progressed.
We’ve got a streak of our own.
MAVS WWWWWWIN!@chime | #MFFL pic.twitter.com/65M7REABSX
— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) January 10, 2022
Josh Green and Maxi Kleber had season highs with 18 points each for Dallas. It was a career high for Green, who scored nine in the fourth quarter. Jalen Brunson added 17 points, Dorian Finney-Smith had 12 and Dwight Powell 10. Doncic, back in the lineup after missing the previous game with an ankle sprain, got his first triple-double since Nov. 29.
”He looked all right, didn’t he?” said Mavericks assistant coach Sean Sweeney, who led the team for the second straight game after Jason Kidd was placed in the NBA health and safety protocols on Friday.
”The (defensive) togetherness combined with the effort has been really, really strong as of late,” Sweeney said. ”We’re doing a real good job of is understanding what the plan is and then, if there isn’t something that we prepared for, cover for each other when it’s needed.”
The Mavericks were 10 points behind in the first quarter but Doncic got everyone involved with his full-court vision to head into the half trailing by just a single point. DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine scored 20 points each to lead the Bulls. Chicago went in averaging 111.3 points per game, eighth best in the league.
The Bulls fell short of getting their longest streak since 1997-98, in the last of Michael Jordan’s six championship seasons.
”What these guys had done night in and night out to get to nine wins in a row, I’m really, really proud of what they did,” Chicago coach Billy Donovan.
”It would have been nice to get to 10 (consecutive wins), double digits, but we didn’t play good enough to win,” said Nikola Vucevic, who scored 13 points.
After taking over in the third period of play to enter the final quarter with the lead, Doncic continued to get everyone involved while finally hitting the target. Doncic registered his 39th career triple-double and now holds the record for the player with most triple doubles at the age of 23 or younger.
He provided half of Mavs’ 28 assists as a team, helping five of his teammates to get to double-digit scores. Meanwhile Jalen Brunson, who scored 17 points in 28 minutes, is now on a 21-game streak of scoring double figures. Dorian Finney-Smith got 12 points in 30 minutes and Dwight Powell contributed a 10-piece for the win.
