Dallas Mavericks: 3 things that went wrong in Game 5

3. Lack of defense

Dallas began the game playing defense at a decent pace, but began to break down more and more as the game went on. The Mavs began the game keeping pace with the vaunted Clippers offense defensively but were simply outmatched this time around.

The Mavs were aggressive and efficient early on, but not long into the first quarter, it was off to the races for this Clipper team. The Clippers went on a monstrous 32-6 run, making eight straight field goals early during this run. You could see within the Mavs, the discouraged looks across their faces that seemed if it was one of those “oh no, not again” type of situations, similar to how hot of a shooting start the Clippers had in Game one.

Their aggression on defense was lackluster and it never picked up throughout the game. Every single Mavs player had a defensive rating no lower than 140 in Game five.

Some of the few things that Dallas began to fine-tune, ended up being their biggest downfall. Those being, stepping up their defense and defending the 3-pt line.

The two Clippers superstars showed exactly why they are referred to as such, by being the first teammates to score 30+ points in 30 minutes. Kawhi Leonard has been doing it all series, no matter what the defense throws at him.