the Mavericks\u2019 132-111 loss at the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>? Will Klay Thompson continue to show signs of life behind the arc, where he\u2019s shooting 41.4% shooting in four games in December, or will he regress to another 0-of-5 or 1-of-8 night from deep, as we saw too many times earlier in the season?<\/p>\nAt this point, no outcome should come as a surprise to anyone who\u2019s been watching Dallas consistently this year.<\/p>\n
The riddle of defensive identity<\/p>\n
What exactly do the Mavericks hang their hat on? To a man, they\u2019d probably tell you, \u201cdefense,\u201d and that makes sense for a team that comes into Monday\u2019s game un Utah with the seventh-best defensive rating (112.2) in the NBA.<\/p>\n
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But in their last six games, the Mavs\u2019 offense has had to come along for the ride to produce those last five wins. Dallas has scored fewer than 114 points just once in their last six games, in that beatdown at the hands of the Thunder on Dec. 5.<\/p>\n
Good defense simply hasn\u2019t been enough for Dallas, at least not when the other half of the equation was one of the worst offenses in the league. Slowing Utah down on Monday doesn\u2019t appear to be the toughest test of the game for the Mavericks. The Jazz turn the ball over with the worst of \u2018em, 16.4 times per game, good for 28th in the NBA. They shoot the 3-pointer at just a 34.5% clip. That\u2019s 25th in the league and just a hair better than the Mavs shoot it (34.1%). Utah comes in with the NBA\u2019s 20th-ranked offensive rating, at 113.3.<\/p>\n
No, what the Mavericks still need to show is the ability to consistently pair their solid defense with an offense that gives them a little separation on the scoreboard \u2014 to put teams away that deserve to be put away.<\/p>\n
They should have an opportunity to do that on Monday at the Jazz.<\/p>\n
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Keyonte\u2019s quiz<\/p>\n
George has been on a tear recently, scoring 27 or more points in six of his last nine games. He went off for 39, to go along with eight dimes, six boards and two steals, in Friday\u2019s 130-126 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. Both of the Mavericks\u2019 best options at point guard, Nembhard and Brandon Williams, are smaller guys and don\u2019t defend larger guards all that well. George goes 6\u20194 and has both the body to bully Nembhard or Williams on his way to the bucket, and the burst to easily get past anyone Dallas puts between him and the rim. It\u2019s the one matchup against Utah that jumps off the page as an immediate disadvantage for the Mavs.<\/p>\n
With D\u2019Angelo Russell ruled out on Monday, missing his second straight game with an illness, the Mavericks are without a bigger point guard to throw at George on the defensive end. And speaking of injured Mavs, Daniel Gafford was upgraded to questionable for the game at Utah, according to the 5:30 p.m. NBA injury report, after missing the last three games with an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
How to watch<\/p>\n
The Mavericks visit the Jazz on Monday at the Delta Center, where tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. The game will be broadcast locally on KFAA Channel 29 and on regional sister stations throughout the Mavs\u2019 viewing area. You can catch the stream on MavsTV as well as on NBA League Pass where available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are the Dallas Mavericks (10-16) in their ascendancy as we inch closer to the potential return of star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[495,7,247,686,149,4057,2619,9924,187,194,423,5088,955,498,1251,967,976,150,166,174,177,189,6,179,4163,9856,5592,490,427,1405],"class_list":{"0":"post-474320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-dallasmavericks","14":"tag-daniel-gafford","15":"tag-delta-center","16":"tag-denver-nuggets","17":"tag-houston-rockets","18":"tag-jazz","19":"tag-jusuf-nurkic","20":"tag-keyonte-george","21":"tag-klay-thompson","22":"tag-kyle-filipowski","23":"tag-kyrie-irving","24":"tag-lauri-markkanen","25":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","26":"tag-mavericks","27":"tag-mavs","28":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","29":"tag-miami-heat","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","32":"tag-point-guard","33":"tag-ryan-nembhard","34":"tag-the-jazz","35":"tag-the-mavericks","36":"tag-utah-jazz","37":"tag-walker-kessler"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}