Five made threes can change the geometry of a basketball game. Kyrie Irving’s five did precisely that for Dallas on Friday, helping the Mavericks pull away for a 121-105 victory over Indiana. They also came with a limit: six fouls reduced Irving’s night to 25 minutes, leaving Dallas without its most polished escape route for the final stretch.
Irving’s shot mix explains why his 24 points arrived so efficiently. He went 5-for-10 from beyond the arc, 3-for-5 on two-point attempts and 3-for-3 at the line. Fifteen points came from threes, six from inside the arc and three from free throws.
The long ball carried most of the scoring load, while the smaller two-point total showed a player who did not need a steady diet of drives to bend the defense.
The first quarter supplied two clean examples. At 10:52, Daniel Gafford kept a Dallas possession alive with an offensive rebound after Max Christie missed a three. Irving followed with a 28-foot jumper, and Dallas moved ahead 5-2.
With 1:17 left in the period, Irving hit another three from 27 feet to make it 39-23. The Mavericks finished the quarter with a 44-27 advantage, and Irving’s range forced Indiana to account for him well beyond the usual comfort zone.
His work inside the arc mattered because it prevented the perimeter display from becoming one-dimensional. Irving made a driving layup with 3:27 left in the first quarter, then added a seven-foot floating jumper at 10:16 of the second. In the third, he connected on a 17-foot jumper at 10:06.
At 8:02, he struck again from 24 feet for his third three, and another triple with 56.3 seconds left in the period gave him four made threes and put Dallas at 94 points. The fifth arrived at 9:43 of the fourth, a 26-footer that stretched the Mavericks’ lead to 103-82.
By then, the foul count had become a genuine complication rather than a bookkeeping nuisance. Irving committed an offensive foul at 7:11 of the first quarter and a shooting foul at 2:15 of the second. He picked up two more personal fouls in the third, at 8:19 and 5:40, then drew his fifth on a fourth-quarter shooting foul at 9:33.
After losing the ball with 4:24 remaining, Irving committed his sixth foul one second later. Naji Marshall entered for him, and Dallas’s leading scorer was finished.
The final margin made that interruption survivable. P.J. Washington delivered 20 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks.
Christie scored 16 in nearly 38 minutes, while Marshall added 15 points, six assists and three steals. Morez Johnson Jr. supplied eight points and six rebounds in 17 minutes. Dallas also made 14 of 34 threes; Indiana managed only seven of 32.
