DALLAS – This wasn’t exactly a night officially dedicated to DeAndre Jordan, but the former Los Angeles Clippers center sure played like it was.
Jordan scored 16 points and grabbed a season-high 23 rebounds Sunday night and played his best game of the year at American Airlines Center while leading the Dallas Mavericks — without rookie Luka Doncic — to a physically fought 114-110 victory over the Clippers.
It was the seventh consecutive win at home for the Mavs and moved them back over .500 at 11-10.
It also was the Mavs’ ninth victory in their last 12 games. They stand in eighth in the Western Conference.
Jordan spent the previous 10 years of his career with the Clippers before opting out of the final year of his contract and signing a one-year, free-agent deal with the Mavs in July. Sunday was the first time Jordan played against the Clippers since joining the Mavs, and he produced 12 of his points and 14 of his rebounds in the second half.
“It was major to get a win for him against his old team,” point guard Dennis Smith Jr. said. “You know it was pressure for him to stay [with the Clippers], and of course there was some Clipper fans that had their opinions about him coming here.
“So we definitely wanted to come out and get a win for him. He competed really hard on both ends, and it was a major win for us tonight.”
While the Mavs collected a big win against the team that entered Sunday’s contest with the best record in the Western Conference, Smith suffered a broken tooth late in the third quarter, compliments of an errant Patrick Beverley elbow. But Smith shook off the dental mishap and re-entered the game less than two minutes into the fourth quarter, ultimately manufacturing the game’s biggest defensive play.
With the Clippers down by two points and time winding down, LA ran a play that ended up having the 6-foot-3 Smith on the low box trying to defend 6-9 Tobias Harris. As Harris turned to attempt a potential game-tying field goal, Smith was right in his grill and wound up not only blocking the shot, but grabbing the rebound with 9.2 seconds remaining in the game.
“They thought they had an advantage,” Smith said. “They thought.
“Earlier, I had guarded him and he did the same exact move and they called me for a foul, so I just anticipated that he was going to do the same move again, and I got lucky and I was right.”
Smith sealed the deal on this game by draining a pair of free throws to increase the Mavs’ lead to four points.
“I thought it was one of the best competitive things I had ever seen in a long time,” Carlisle said, in reference to the Smith’s resurgence after he returned to the game following his tooth being extracted. “With our manpower situation tonight we needed him to step in there and take on that huge defensive assignment.”
The Mavs played without Doncic and backup forward Maxi Kleber. Doncic strained his right hip on Friday against the Los Angeles Lakers, while Kleber has a sore right knee.
Neither injury, according to Carlisle, is serious.
Meanwhile, Harrison Barnes poured in a season-high 30 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Mavs, and J.J. Barea came off the bench to tally 20 of his season-high 24 points in the first half, which ended with Dallas nursing a 62-58 lead.
Whether he had any extra motivation going up against the Clippers, Jordan didn’t want to get into. He kept the focus on his team.
“I thought collectively we did a great job,” Jordan said. “We started out a little slow, but then we got stops and we were able to push the pace and I thought our defense picked up and got us some momentum in the second quarter, and then we kind of hung our hats on that throughout the game.”