Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd hopes his team will be better equipped to deal with playing without Anthony Davis when the standout center misses Saturday afternoon’s road game against the Sacramento Kings.
Davis experienced right groin spasms early in the second quarter of Thursday’s 126-116 loss at Golden State. He left the game immediately and never returned, and multiple reports Friday indicated that he likely would miss the final two games of Dallas’ trip.
The Mavericks visit Portland on Monday before getting two days off leading into a home matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers next Thursday.
Without Davis around for most of the game, the Warriors dominated the Mavericks on the boards, gaining a 49-41 overall advantage and 13-3 on the offensive glass. Golden State, one of the shortest teams in the league, enjoyed a 24-6 advantage in second-chance points.
“Losing AD definitely hurt us; he’s one of our best players,” Kidd said at his postgame press conference. “We just couldn’t get a stop when we needed to. This is a good game for us to learn from.”
Backup center Daniel Gafford saw 15 minutes off the Dallas bench, but it was P.J. Washington and Cooper Flagg who did most of the heavy lifting among the Mavericks’ big men in Davis’ absence. Washington led all rebounders in the game with 10 to go with 14 points, while Flagg had a game-high 27 points, hitting 13 of his 21 shots.
For the second game in a row, Flagg will be making his NBA debut at a new arena. He has made particularly impressive first impressions at Western sites, where he had 42 points at Utah, 35 in Los Angeles against the Clippers and 24 at Denver before the 27 against the Warriors.
The Mavericks and Kings will be meeting for the first time this season.
Sacramento has been transitioning to a replacement center for the past 16 games as Domantas Sabonis has been out with a partial meniscus tear in his left knee. The Kings have gone just 4-12 in those games.
Flagg will get an opportunity to renew acquaintances with a fellow Atlantic Coast Conference alum if Maxime Raynaud makes his ninth straight start in Sabonis’ place. The rookie from Stanford has averaged 14.3 points and 9.6 points in his first eight NBA starts, recording four double-doubles along the way.
The Kings will be looking to break even on a four-game homestand that has included a 125-124 overtime win over the Houston Rockets. Sacramento was beaten 136-127 by the Detroit Pistons in its most recent game on Tuesday.
The Kings might find themselves another man down Saturday, as Keegan Murray sat out the second half of the Detroit game after suffering a strained right calf before the break.
“As you can see, he’s always missed,” Kings coach Doug Christie said of Murray, whose 15-game absence at the start of the season following thumb surgery helped contribute to Sacramento’s 3-12 struggle out of the gate. “(We miss) all that he brings to the game — size, athleticism, defense, shooting.”
