DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks nearly pulled off an incredible 21-point comeback in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. Had they pulled it off, it would have been the second-largest come-from-behind win in NBA Finals history.
Instead, Mavs find themselves just one loss away from losing the Larry O'Brien Trophy to the Boston Celtics.
With their Game 3 loss, the Mavs became the 157th team in NBA history to go down 3-0 in the NBA Playoffs. The record of the 156 teams before them in a Finals? 0-156. Never once has a team responded from that deficit to win a series.
Through three games, Luka Doncic has mostly carried his weight, scoring 30, 32 and 27 in each Finals game despite injuries and not playing the last four minutes of Game 3 after fouling out. Doncic's backcourt running mate Kyrie Irving had a rough first two games, but at least turned things on in Game 3 with a 35-point effort.
The supporting cast outside of those two, however, has been unfortunately unimpactful on the scoring sheet all series long.
Worst of all? The Mavs' third-leading scorer in the regular season, Tim Hardaway Jr., who hasn't even scored a single point in the NBA Finals after logging 27 total minutes in two of the three games. (Kidd did not play him in Game 2.).
This is Hardaway Jr.'s awful stat line in his two appearances:
- 27 minutes played
- 0 points scored
- 0-7 field goals made
- 0-3 3-point field goals made
In fact, Hardaway Jr. hasn't scored a single point since Game 6 of the series against Oklahoma City -- and, in that game, he only scored one bucket.
Granted, his minutes have been limited in the playoff run after injuring his ankle in Game 2 of the Mavs' first round series against the Los Angeles Clippers. But Hardaway Jr. stull returned for that second round series against the Thunder, where he logged 17 minutes, 19 minutes, 16 minutes, 23 minutes, 12 minutes and six minutes across the series.
His scoring production, though, has been a far cry from what it was during the regular season. In the playoffs, he's scored above 10 points only once (when he put up 17 points in Game 2 against the Clippers).
Worse, when his team needed him most, Hardaway Jr.'s plus-minus (+/-) on Wednesday night against the Celtics was a game-low -16.
The Mavericks tip off against Boston for Game 4 from the American Airlines Center on Friday, June 14. The game will start at 7:30 p.m. CT and will air on WFAA (ABC).
If Dallas is going to make history and become the first NBA team in 157 tries to win four straight to claim the NBA Finals, the notoriously streaky Hardaway Jr. finally heating up would sure be a big help.
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