Luka Dončić came to the Frost Bank Center for both the Mavericks and Spurs season opener back in October, where he dropped 33 points in a Dallas win.
Dončić, who currently leads the NBA in points per game with 34.1, was held to just 18 on Tuesday night. However, the Spurs turnovers were too much to overcome, falling 113-107 to the Mavs.
“That’s literally the reason we lost the game, the turnover battle,” guard Devin Vassell said. “We played okay, we beat them in a lot of categories, especially the important ones, but turnovers, it’s gonna be something we continue to work on.”
After trailing by as many as 13 points, the Spurs (15-54) kept the game within their reach, taking over the lead six different times. The Mavs (41-29) took advantage of San Antonio’s 16 giveaways, primarily down the stretch to pull away for the season sweep over the Spurs.
San Antonio took their first lead of the third quarter when guard Tre Jones scored a three and followed up with a layup, minimizing Dallas’ lead to one point. Vassell made a shot, surpassing the Mavs score and taking another one-point lead at 77-76.
“We wanted to make it a point to come out in the third quarter and have it be our quarter,” Jones said.
30 seconds later, assisted by guard Keldon Johnson, forward Cedi Osman 3-pointer, pushing the Spurs ahead by two points at 81-79. However, Mavs guard Kyrie Irving, who was the top-scorer of the evening with 28 points, was quick to tie up the game at 81-81.
“We out-rebounded them, we shot better than they did,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “We outscored them in the third quarter, outscored them in the fourth quarter, we had the same number of assists basically, I think they had one more than we did, but we had 16 turnovers, that’s the difference.
“Our goal is to get better every game individually and team wise, they did that and I’m really proud of what they did.”
The Spurs will face the Grizzlies at 7 p.m. Friday at Frost Bank Center.
