Mavericks can’t dance to Thunder’s rock music

Oklahoma City guards Russell Westbrook and Cameron Payne did their usual fancy pregame dance Thursday night — without any interruptions this time from any members of the Dallas Mavericks.

Then the entire Thunder team proceeded to dance all over the Mavericks — without many interruptions from the home team.

In a very skillful display of basketball, the Thunder led wire-to-wire and tap-danced their way to a thorough 131-102 victory over the Mavericks at American Airlines Center.

The artful performance gave OKC a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven series, which resumes at AAC at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Except for a brief skirmish in the second half, the Mavericks didn’t put up much of a fight while permitting the second-most points they’ve allowed in a game this season.

While regaining home-court advantage, the Thunder shot a sizzling 57.7 percent from the field, outrebounded the Mavericks by nine and had a firm grip on this game the entire night.

“Their talent is really strong, their rebounding is great and all that,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “But we beat them in Game 2 [in Oklahoma City].

“They are beatable, but we’ve got to come out with a better disposition. It’s as simple as that.”

OKC’s dynamic duo of Westbrook and Kevin Durant rebounded from a poor performance in their Game 2 loss. Durant had the worst game of his NBA career in Game 2 when he was just 7 of 33 from the field and scored 21 points in an 85-84 loss.

On Thursday, the Texas ex poured in 34 points on 11 of 25 shots, and Westbrook added 26 points and 15 assists en route to demoralizing the Mavericks.

“They were isolating Westbrook and Durant all night long, and basically have those guys just attack and jump over us,” Carlisle said. “We’re going to have to do a better job of defending individually and also in situations where we need to double-team, our rotations have got to be better.”

The Mavericks fell behind by 11 late in the first quarter, but narrowed the deficit to 58-50 early in the third quarter.

The Thunder, however, basically put the game away with an 11-0 run to lead 69-50 with 9:16 left in the third period after a fast-break dunk by Serge Ibaka [16 points] and a pull-up jumper from 20 feet by Durant.

Dallas never got closer than 10 points thereafter.

“It’s going to be tough for us to win if they are going score 130 points,” said Dirk Nowitzki, who fought off a bone bruise in his right knee to play 33 minutes and score 16 points. “We have to slow it down and grind it out.

“We would love a slower-paced game. We have to look at some film and see how we can do it.”

The Mavericks did show some fight when guard Raymond Felton and OKC center Steven Adams were issued double-technical fouls with 7:19 left in the third quarter.

Less than three minutes later, Andre Roberson — Nowitzki was a teammate of his dad’s back in Germany — and Nowitzki had to be separated after they were jawing at each other.

“I mean, we’re going to fight, there’s no question,” said Wesley Matthews, who led the Mavericks with 22 points. “We’re not going to go anywhere, we’re not going to backpedal for anybody.”

The Mavericks played without point guard Deron Williams (sports hernia). But they did receive some meaningful minutes from J.J. Barea, who missed Game 2 with a strained right groin, and from David Lee, after missing the opening two games of this series.

Unfortunately, the Mavericks, who fell behind 25-14 before the first quarter ended, wound up doing too much backpedaling and need a home win Saturday to avoid a 3-1 deficit.

“We just got to come out next game and play with a little more force, play a little more with an attitude, play angry and we still have a fighting chance,” said Felton, who scored 18 points. “Get this thing tied up and go back down there for Game 5 and just try to get us another win.”

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Mavericks can’t dance to Thunder’s rock music."