On May 14, the Thunder defeated the Mavericks 100-96, making the Western Conference semifinals 2-2 for both teams. In this game, Alexander, the core of the Thunder team, once again played the role of Mr. Key, and he scored a high score of 34 points. And it also set a new career playoff scoring high. Alexander had two previous playoff 33-point scoring performances.
Alexander has grown into the core and leader of this Thunder team. In the series against the Mavericks, Alexander was the most consistent player on the team. He averaged 31.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and seven assists per game after four series while shooting 48 percent from the field and 45 percent from three-point range.
Among them, the fourth matchup on the 14th was Alexander's peak game, especially worth mentioning in the final quarter he shot 4 of 7, scored 10 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and scored 8 points in the last 5 minutes. It was Alexander's performance that turned the tide and made the Thunder thrilling. Another interesting thing is that all of Alexander's 14 goals in this game came from jump shots, which shows his solid fundamentals.
In addition to Alexander's superb play, another important factor in the Thunder's victory in this game was the free throw. The Thunder made 23 of 24 free throws in total, a 95.8 percent shooting percentage. But at the same time, the Mavericks shot a pitifully low free-throw percentage of 12-of-23 from the field at a 52.2 percent percentage. Statistically, this is the first time in the history of the NBA playoffs that both teams have made more than 20 free throws, but one team has shot more than 95% of the free throws and the other team has shot less than 55%.
Mavericks superstar Doncic said after the game: "We've got to improve our free throws, and the free-throw percentage in this game was unacceptable. Doncic actually made 4 of 6 free throws. With 10.1 seconds left in the game, Doncic made two free throws, and if he hit both free throws, the Mavericks would have equalized, but unfortunately Doncic only hit one free throw, which also made the team miss the perfect opportunity to chase the score.
Text/Beiqing Sports Song Xiang