Andrew Wiggins gives Golden State a huge spark in the 4th quarter, leading the Warriors to a dominant Game 3 win.
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DALLAS — A police officer stood guard in front of a half-drawn curtain near the entrance to the visitor’s locker room as Golden State strolled past celebrating Sunday’s 109-100 win against Dallas in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals.
Through the crack in the curtain, you could see the line of staffers waiting.
Through the smacks of sweaty high-fives, you could hear joy reverberating as the Warriors seized a 3-0 lead in this best-of-seven series to force the Mavericks into a near-impossible position.
See, teams falling behind 3-0 in a postseason series own a record of 0-146 all-time in league annals.
YESSIRRRRR pic.twitter.com/YQxBKdiLgz
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 23, 2022
“I love the position we’re in. I love the fact that our team came in and got the win tonight,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “This was the one we felt like we had to get. Coming here up 2-0, you’ve got to take advantage of your momentum. You can’t let a team back in.”
Golden State only pushed Dallas further away from its ultimate goal in controlling this game from the 2:01 mark of the second quarter through the final whistle. The Warriors overcame yet another 40-point outing from Mavericks’ superstar guard Luka Doncic, who has now put together a franchise-record eight career playoff games with 40 points or more.
We’ll tell you why big nights like these from Doncic in the postseason usually bode badly for the Mavericks as we dig into our five takeaways from Sunday’s Golden State victory ahead of Tuesday’s Game 4 at American Airlines Center.
1. Luka is legit
Tell me something I don’t already know, right? Doncic racked up a playoff career-high 21 points in the final frame, finishing with a game-high 40 points on 11-for-23 shooting overall and a 4-for-9 showing from 3-point range while logging 11 rebounds and three assists. But there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Perhaps that’s what we’ve witnessed when Doncic goes for 40 points or more in a playoff game. When that happens, the Mavericks are 2-6 and they’ve dropped four straight contests under those conditions.
Luka Doncic delivered 40 points and 11 rebounds in a Game 3 loss to Golden State.
Doncic is averaging 34.0 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game in this series. We’ve talked exhaustively about the need for the guard to involve the rest of his teammates to help Dallas achieve success vs. Golden State. The 23-year-old did just that in the early portion of this game … but his teammates struggled to knock down shots in the opening half. In the first half of Game 3, Mavs players not named Doncic shot a combined 10-for-29 overall and 5-for-22 from deep and finished 9-for-36 overall on 3-pointers in Game 3.
Doncic, 23, tied LeBron James for the most 40-point postseason games (8) before turning 25.
2. Warriors weather second-quarter storm
Golden State lost the second quarter by just two points (25-23), but you probably didn’t realize that at one point Dallas owned a 19-8 advantage in that frame. Don’t think for a second the Warriors’ strong close to the second quarter didn’t factor into the final outcome of this contest.
The Mavericks started the second quarter with Doncic resting on the bench, and quickly embarked on a 12-4 run to take a 34-29 lead, before the point guard re-entered the contest with 6:40 remaining. Golden State responded with a 14-8 run, capped by Stephen Curry nailing a 23-foot jumper with 2:01 left in the first half. Curry turned to the bench before the shot even dropped through the bucket, and then hit the crowd with his patented shimmy to celebrate Golden State taking a 43-42 lead, its first since early in the contest.
The Warriors' experience paid off in Game 3 of the West finals.
That shot marked Curry’s third made 3-pointer of the contest, and he finished with 31 points and five made 3-pointers, marking his 53rd career postseason game with five or more made 3-pointers. No other player in NBA history has put together 30 such games.
By the way, Golden State improved to 14-0 in the conference finals when Curry scores 30 or more.
3. Dallas’ emphasis on the paint
Doncic said after Game 2 his team needed to attack more in the paint, pointing out the fact Golden State has two of the best shooters in NBA history in Curry and Klay Thompson. Yet, the Warriors always seem to go hard near the bucket. Doncic mentioned the need for the Mavericks to employ similar tactics. Dallas tried early on, but it failed, as it finished the first half with 14 points in that area compared to 24 for the visitors.
The Warriors outscored the Mavericks 46-34 in the paint, but that wasn’t a result of the home team not trying to inflict damage in that area. Doncic and Jalen Brunson consistently drove their way into the paint, and either got buckets or dished to teammates that misfired on solid looks on the perimeter.
The Mavs face long odds after falling in a 3-0 series hole.
“Reggie [Bullock] is 0 for 10, Dorian [Finney-Smith] is 2 for 7 or 3 for 7,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. “When you look at the guys who scored, Spencer [Dinwiddie], LD (Luka Doncic) and JB (Jalen Brunson), that’s not enough against the Warriors.”
Doncic and Brunson scored more than half (60 points) of Dallas’ points, but the rest of the Mavericks went 12-for-40 in Game 3. Bullock (0-for-10 in Game 3) became the first player to shoot 0 of 10 or worse in the Western Conference finals since Trevor Ariza in 2018.
4. Wiggins continues stellar play
Andrew Wiggins posted his third double-double of the postseason, and his first career 20-10 playoff outing with a playoff career-high 27 points, 11 rebounds and three assists. The first-time All-Star is also making Doncic work harder than usual on both ends of the floor. Offensively, Wiggins stays on the attack against Doncic, which tires out the Dallas point guard, and saps away his effectiveness on both ends.
Andrew Wiggins delivers a monstrous poster jam over Luka Doncic in Game 3!
“Yeah, Wiggins is a talented player,” Kidd said. “He’s an All-Star. So, when you look at what they’re asking him to do, he’s doing it at a high level.”
5. Kidd keeps message the same
Even before Dallas’ upset over the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference semifinals, Kidd maintained that his team is at the beginning of a journey rather than the end. So, with the Mavericks trailing 3-0 and facing elimination in this series, the coach continues to push the idea his team is playing with house money.
“This is just the beginning of the journey,” he said. “I know you guys had us winning the championship before the season started. And that’s a joke if you didn’t get it. But this is a lot bigger than just his one game or this one series. This is huge for our franchise because none of you guys had us here.”
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Michael C. Wright is a senior writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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