Mavs, Warriors meet in battle of win streaks on TNT
Dallas heads into tonight’s matchup leading the league with a 7-game winning streak.
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Tonight, for the second time in three days, the Mavs will be in a game between the two teams with the longest active win streaks in the NBA.
On Sunday, the Mavs extended their run to seven straight wins while snapping Houston’s league-high 11-game win streak. The win also pulled Dallas even with New Orleans at 45-29 and lifted the Mavs to fifth in the West due to tiebreaker (superior division record).
Now, the Mavs own the longest win streak and will face the team with the second-longest when they visit the Warriors (10 ET, TNT).
After a season-long three-game stretch scoring fewer than 30 points, Luka Doncic dropped 47 on the Rockets as the league’s leading scorer brought his average back up to 34 points.
- Why is that number significant? Luka would be only the 10th player in NBA history to average 34+ points for an entire season
- The others: Wilt Chamberlain (6x), Michael Jordan (2x), James Harden (2x), Elgin Baylor (2x), Kobe Bryant, Tiny Archibald, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Rick Barry
Another Mavs streak: This seven-game run has also seen Dallas hold each of their last seven opponents to 107 points or less.
- That ties Boston and Houston for the longest streak in the league this season
- For perspective, the 30-team average this season is 114.4 ppg
Just as those footsteps from Houston were getting louder and louder as Golden State’s lead for the No. 10 spot got smaller and smaller, the Warriors found their way – running off four straight wins to fend off the Rockets (at least for now) in the race for the final spot in the Play-In.
- Timely Response: Houston pulled within a half-game of Golden State on March 25. The Warriors’ win streak began on March 26
- With Houston’s win streak snapped, the Warriors have a two-game lead on the Rockets, and own the head-to-head tiebreaker (leading season series 2-0 with one game to play on Thursday)
The Warriors enter tonight looking for their fifth straight win, which would give them four five-game win streaks this season. The only other teams with that many five-game win streak – conference leaders OKC (4) and Boston (6).
Can the Warriors claim the mantle of the hottest team in the league by snapping Dallas’ win streak? Or will Dallas push their win run to eight games, giving them their longest win streak since 2011?
*** This article was pulled from our Starting 5 Newsletter, a daily look at all things NBA. To get the newsletter in your inbox every morning, subscribe here.
