Dallas Mavericks 107 Chicago Bulls 82

A day after beating the Eastern Conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers the Chicago Bulls were blown out by the team with the worst record in the NBA the Dallas Mavericks by 25 points. What can you even look for? It is the 2nd of a back to back or maybe the fact that Dwayne Wade was given the night off. Even though the Bulls are at a weird point of their schedule where they play 10 games in 12 days, but this is just the second game of that schedule. Maybe it was just as simple as they looked past a team that was 3-15 coming into the game. It also didn’t help the Bulls that the Mavericks went 13 of 31 (41.9%) from behind the 3-point line, but anyway it’s a loss and not a good one.

As hard as it might be to believe in today’s NBA, but the Mavericks never trailed in this game. Dallas scored the first 7 points of the game and built the lead to 17 at 23 to 6 before the Bulls knew what hit them. The Bulls did close the 1st quarter on a 12-6 run to cut the Mavericks lead to 11 points 29-18 at the end of the 1st.

The teams played a very even 2nd quarter. The Bulls could only get as close as 6 points and the Mavericks biggest lead they built in the quarter was 13 points. Overall the Mavericks outscored the Bulls 28 to 27 in the 2nd quarter. Going into halftime the Mavericks had a 12 point lead at 57-45.

The Mavericks continued to build on there lead in the 3rd quarter. Dallas grab a 21 point lead on two different occasions. First at 74-53 after a Dwight Powell dunk with 6:01 left in the quarter and then again at 79-58 after a Wesley Matthews 3 pointer with 3:24 left in the quarter. The Bulls cut 6 points off the lead, but still went into the 4th quarter down 82-66.

Down 16 points maybe the Bulls thought the game was pout of hand as their bench played the majority of the 4th quarter. With the bench players on the floor the Bulls scored just 16 points and the Mavericks where able to add to the lead scoring 25 points in the 4th quarter. By outscoring the Bulls by 9 points in the final quarter the Mavericks picked up there 4th win of the season 107-82.

Wesley Matthews had 26 points which tied him for the games high scorer. Matthews did most of his damage from behind the 3 point line going 7 of 11 in the game. Harrison Barnes had 22 points while Dorian Finney-Smith added 11 points. Dwight Powell came off the Dallas bench to score 17 points. Andrew Bogut was the games leading rebounder with 11 and Deron Williams led everyone in assists with 15.

Jimmy Butler was the other player in the game with 26 points as he led the Bulls in scoring. Robin Lopez had  points and Taj Gibson added 11 points. Isaiah Canaan came off the Bulls bench to score  points..

The win improved Dallas to- on the season while the Bulls saw there record drop to 11-8. The Mavericks get a day off before hosting the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night. There is a chance the Mavericks will have Dirk Nowitzi back for that game. The Bulls will also have Sunday off as they head back to Chicago where they’ll host the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night.