With revenge on their minds, Mavericks get the season back on track in historic blowout win over Clippers

Rick Carlisle often describes the NBA as a hit-first league. Hit first or risk getting decked.

In this season’s first two games, it was debatable whether Dallas even got its dukes up, but on Sunday afternoon at Staples Center the Mavericks landed haymaker after haymaker upon the dazed Clippers, dealing them the most savage first-half beating in the NBA’s 75-season history.

Dallas 77, Los Angeles 27.

There was no letup even as Carlisle emptied his bench in the second half. The overall 124-73 drubbing strongly suggested that the Mavericks had not forgotten the rough stuff the Clippers inflicted on, in particular, Luka Doncic while beating Dallas in last season’s playoffs.

And Los Angeles’ 43-point win in Game 5, which included Marcus Morris Jr. stepping on Doncic’s sprained ankle, purposely, more than a few Mavericks believed.

“I would sit here and lie if I said ‘No,’” said Tim Hardaway Jr. when I asked whether revenge was on Dallas’ mind. “Obviously there’s definitely still a little bit of that memory locked in your head.

“We just tried our best not to just go out there and focus on that. We just tried to make sure we played our style and our brand of basketball.”

Something obviously motivated them. The 50-point halftime lead broke the previous NBA record of 47 points (88-41) set by Golden State against Sacramento on Nov. 2, 1991.

The 51-point final margin was the second-largest in the Mavericks’ 41-season history, behind only the 53-point drubbing Dallas inflicted on Philadelphia on Nov. 13, 2014.

To think: Less than 48 hours earlier, in the same building, the Lakers pummeled Dallas by 25 points on Christmas night. Surely the 76-point turnabout is another record of some kind.

Dallas (1-2) was the only team in the NBA to avoid a three-game losing streak last season, but was in danger of opening the season 0-3 after losses at Phoenix and the Lakers.

“I think we showed who were are,” said Doncic, who finished with 24 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists in just 26 minutes. “People judged us the first two games of the season. It’s a long season. But we’ve got to play defense and that’s our strategy for now on.”

As for whether revenge was on his mind, Doncic said, “No, not really,” though the pause and brief smile that preceded his answer suggested otherwise.

“There’s not much to say. I just wasn’t thinking about it. New season, new goals. I wasn’t thinking about the playoffs.”

If there was perhaps a Mavericks downside to Sunday’s clobbering, it was that Morris wasn’t on the court to absorb it. He was sidelined with a sore knee.

The Clippers also played without Kawhi Leonard, but, hey, Dallas was without Kristaps Porzingis, as was the case in the final three games of that August playoff series in the Disney World bubble.

Josh Richardson wasn’t a Maverick back then, but he and Doncic gave Los Angeles an early full dose of Dallas’ new and more versatile starting backcourt. Doncic and Richardson scored 13 points apiece in the first quarter, becoming the first Mavericks teammates to do so in at least 20 years.

“I don’t really think they had to say that for me to know,” Richardson said when asked whether any of his new teammates spoke of the playoff series loss. “I watch basketball. I watched the series and it was a great series. But now that we’re here, we’re trying to inherit that.”

Virtually every Maverick, old and new, played a part in the Sunday blitzkrieg that stretched a 10-4 game to 25-5, then 36-13 after one quarter, then 56-16 and eventually a 57-point high-water-mark at 120-63 midway through the fourth quarter.

Dallas had first-half runs of 9-0, 10-0 and 12-0 and then “weathered” the Clippers scoring the first ten points of the second half.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” said Paul George, who led the Clippers with 15 points. “Yes, we got our butts kicked today, but it’s one game. I think we will just take away what we need to take away from today and [move on] to the next one.”

George theorized that the Clippers having to play at Denver on Christmas night, then celebrating a day later with the families, played into the team’s unpreparedness.

Certainly, this will be an easier loss to shrug off than the playoff-series defeat has been for Dallas, which had 119 days in which to stew about that result and how it transpired.

Of far greater importance to the current Dallas team, this season suddenly and emphatically is back on rails after the close loss to Denver and unhinging against the Lakers.

Did the real Dallas Mavericks stand up Sunday? If so, who were those imposters on Christmas night, in the same building?

“In the first half, our guys established a standard for collective toughness and will that we need to find a way to maintain and they need to find a way to hold each other accountable to maintain it,” Carlisle said. “The coaching staff’s part of it too.

“But we’re a family, and we’ve got to keep each other accountable.”

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