DALLAS — The Philadelphia 76ers were looking to build off a very solid win over the Miami Heat in South Florida when they paid a visit to the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday. Considering the step up in individual talent, it was a tough go at it for the Sixers on the second night of a back-to-back.
The Mavericks offer two of the best scorers the league has to offer: Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. While the Mavs were 1-4 in games both played since the big Irving trade, they still offered substantial problems for Philadelphia on Thursday.
Doncic had 42 points on 13-for-22 shooting and 7-for-13 from deep and Irving dropped 40 on 15-for-22 shooting in a 133-126 win over the Sixers. They became the first duo in Mavs history to each have 40 points in a game.
“I mean, two guys had damn near 100 points on us,” said Tobias Harris. “It was tough with one wizard with the basketball in Luka and now they got two of them out there so it was a tough matchup. Those are some of the best guys with the basketball in the whole league and they just picked us apart tonight and just being able to raise up and score. You gotta give them a lot of credit, too, because they made a lot of tough shots.”
One of the issues that made the star duo so dangerous was the fact that they went one-on-one throughout the night. Doncic and Irving were able to get the matchups they wanted and then go to work.
“Luka and Kyrie are great,” said coach Doc River. “The one thing you got to say, they did make tough shots, but I didn’t like the fact that they had a lot of those one-on-ones. I don’t want either one of those guys playing that much one-on-one, so give them credit. Everybody they passed it to made it, you have nights like that, and they had a night like that tonight, but I also thought all their shots was in great rhythm.”
Once the Sixers tried to crash on the star duo, they passed out to their shooters. The Mavericks knocked down 25 triples on the night.
“Two elite scorers, two elite playmakers, once they get it going, it’s difficult to slow them down,” James Harden added. “It felt like their entire team made a good shot. They shot over 50% from 3, they shot a lot of 3s, and made most of them. When a team gets that hot, it’s difficult to win. We gave ourself a chance, but they literally made everything.”
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